Hello All, I’ve only been doing contests for about 6 months and am not totally sure what category to enter a Pecan Porter. It meets all requirements and specs of an american porter but has pecans in the mash and secondary. I’m torn between American Porter and Experimental Beer, but haven’t ruled out clone beer either. I didn’t base it on any commercial beers so that’s why I’m leaning away from clone. Any input would be appreciated. Thanks.
I guess I could enter it in both, just gotta send 2 entries
This is from the BJCP guidelines for 30A Spice Herb Vegetable
"This category explicitly includes all culinary spices, herbs, and
vegetables, as well as nuts (anything with ‘nut’ in the name, including coconut), chile peppers, coffee, chocolate, spruce tips, rose hips, hibiscus, fruit peels/zest (but not juice), rhubarb, and the like. "
So that is the “correct” category to enter it in. If the pecan notes are so subtle it just tastes like a Porter than you can enter it into American Porter, but likely the flavor profile will be “off”. Experiemental Beer is for a beer that does not fit anywhere else. With the new guidelines it’s almost hard to to make a beer that doesn’t fit.
I would enter it as a Spice Herb Veg personally.
30A Spice Herb Vegetable
Thank you so much. I didn’t even think about reading into that category. Like I said I’m new to this game and am trying to excel. Thanks a lot again.