Can someone help me with the required descriptions for entering beers in these categories? I have two beers, one for each category.
The first beer was made with maris otter, carafa II, and Omega’s Bring on da Funk (oyl-212), a blend of saccharomyces and brett.
For 28A Brett Beer - “The entrant must specify either a base beer style (Classic Style, or a generic style family) or provide a description of the ingredients/specs/desired character. The entrant must specify if a 100% Brett fermentation was conducted. The entrant may specify the strain(s) of Brettanomyces used.”
If I wrote: “Dark ale fermented with saccaromyces and brett” would that be enough information?
My second beer is a raspberry kettle sour. The base beer was essentially an amber ale, and I soured with Goodbelly Mango. The raspberry and sourness dominate the flavor, there’s no “amber ale” to it at all.
For 28C Wild Specialty Beer - “Entrant must specify the type of fruit, spice, herb, or wood used. Entrant must specify a description of the beer, identifying the yeast/bacteria used and either a base style or the ingredients/specs/target character of the beer. A general description of the special nature of the beer can cover all the required items.”
If I wrote “Raspberry ale soured with Lactobacillus” would that work?
28A- I think you are close, but if you can pose a base style, that is preferred, typically, otherwise indicate the grains and Brett used by strain or commercial name so the judges can look for those characters (a blend of Brett Brux, Brett Lambicus and sacc strains, for example).
28C - same here, so American Amber ale with raspberries, fermented with a lactobacillus and sacc yeast blend for example. You can be more descriptive to further assist the judges in what to expect by discussing process, if something special was used, such as lacto first in kettle sour, followed by sacc fermentation…
-28A Dark Ale is pretty vague. Would porter or stout fit? Maybe ale with roasted malt (I don’t think specifying carafa II is that helpful)?
-28C. Do you get any sweetness to provide some balance to the raspberries and the souring? If so caramel malts should be part of the description assuming you used caramel. I would also use “kettle sour” in your description. Judges for sours know what that means.
Thanks for both of your responses, kramerog and ynotbrusum!
For 28C, if I say “American Amber with raspberries” I’m afraid I’ll get dinged, since American Amber is a defined style (19A). My reading of the guidelines is that if it’s a classic style with fruit added I should enter it in 29A, Fruit Beer.
The Brett and wild aspects would mean that the fruit beer base style has been modified into a wild ale. The judges will understand that the fermentation was one involving the specified non-sacc yeast or bacterium, either solely or in a mixed fermentation, as you specify.