Hello! i brewed an small version of the red velvet (Site Not Found) I lowered the OG and the IBU following the same recipe trying to fit it as an american amber ale with rye. It has all the elements of an AAA…OG 1060, 40 IBU and great color. i am going to enter this brew to a BJCP competition but i dont really know if it fits totally into a american amber ale category (10B) because of the dryhops and rye flavor or do i need to enter on the specialty beer category 23A as a red rye ale. What would you do?
if it is fairly well balanced, if it is not too hop-forward, and if the rye just adds some malt complexity/wouldn’t be picked out by many, I’d probably go 10B.
if you taste it and say “mmm, rye!” then go 23. Just be aware that plenty of people are not good at detecting rye and often ask for more of it. Since that would be your only specialty characteristic at that point it needs to show up. “Imperial Red with rye” would have two things pushing it to 23; yours just has the one unless the hop character is extremely high.
Amber ale can be highly hopped. A lot of people prefer it sort of like a red version of an IPA, and I think it will score well that way. Go ahead and consider it a Category 10B. I think you’re fine.
By the way… I figure about 95% of people out there have no idea what rye tastes like. Including judges. Rye should never be a factor in whether to consider something in style or out of style, until you hit perhaps 30% or more of rye in the grist. Otherwise, no worries.
