Tis the season for homebrew competitions and I have a question about a Barely Wine. Should I enter this 4 month aged American Barely Wine into the Barley Wine category if the oak flavor is not quite obvious, or should I enter this beer into the wood aged beer category?
This Barley Wine is true to style (so I think), here is where my question lies; I aged this beast in a French oak barrel for 4 months and it picked up a VELVET character from the barrel. I can kind of make-out the taste of oak, (but what is oak right?) the oak flavor is border-line and anyone who knows oak aging will know it was oak aged because of the velvet mouth-feel, and vanilla roundness. The mouth-feel is awesome, velvet, smooth-thing, and it seems like the barrel aging has rounded all the harsh flavors of the American Hops that would still be present if I had not aged it in an oak barrel. Also the body has toned down a bit (it lost a lot of body) because of the barrel aging (it’s not chewy, but it is smooth medium-full bodied). The problem is the oak flavor is not that noticeable. What category would you enter this Barley Wine into?
thanks for the suggestions guys, I was leaning more towards the Barely Wine category. Although, I did think about entering this beer into two different categories, but am uncertain if this practice is not frowned upon by competition organizers.
So now my question is, will homebrew competition organizers frown upon me for entering the same beer into two different categories?
Most (all?) competitions I’ve organized or judged at only had a rule about the same brewer entering multiple beers in the same sub-category. There was no problem entering the same beer in multiple categories/sub-categories. The best thing is to check each competition’s rules and/or contact the organizer if there’s a question.