As a competition organizer, I tend to track the AHA’s rules for the NHC, which includes a limit of one entry per brewer per subcategory. The question has been asked of me why that limit is in place, and frankly I’m not able to come up with great-sounding answers.
I suppose the limit is in place to either somehow discourage cheating, or to discourage one brewer from monopolizing the category prizes, or…I dunno. We could include a rule that says the same beer may only be entered once in a given subcategory.
If a brewer has two different Dry Stouts, or two different Wood Aged Beers, or even two different Fruit Beers using the same base beer but different fruits, or whatever else, it seems to me that he or she should be able to enter both of them in the same correct subcategory, rather than having to pick only one to enter.
I’m thinking of allowing brewers to enter as many beers in whatever subcategories they want, and if anyone has experience with any problems this has caused in the past, I would appreciate any feedback.
I do believe the intent of the rule is to prevent category flooding.
Now having said that for the Falcons Doug King Memorial Comp we actually lift the “one per sub” for all the speciality categories and replace it with a “3 per sub”. Again, preventing flooding, but still letting someone have multiple shots. Your mileage may vary in a general comp as the DKM is a restricted style comp.