Australian Amateur Brewing Championship

[Grainer]

Yours had to go via special courier due to the weight .. lol

 

[jlmcgrath]

Yours had to go via special courier due to the weight .. lol

Haha, I hope thats the case.

 

[clarkey7]

Haha, I hope thats the case.

it just might be

 

[jlmcgrath]

it just might be

Pocket Beers, who are you and what do you know?

 

[clarkey7]

Pocket Beers, who are you and what do you know?

Chief Steward and did you get your stuff yet??

 

[jlmcgrath]

Hey Pocket,

Everything showed up last week. Amazing how you guys were able to cram that conical into such a small package.

 

[Bribie G]

I note that on the AABC site for 2016 (Adelaide) there isn't yet a link to the BJCP style guides.

Are these still going to be the 2008 or the new 2015 set?

 

[Parks]

Pretty sure it'll be 2015 Bribie which was the reasoning in using those for BABBs this year.

 

[Bribie G]

Thanks, I'm assuming therefore that the State competitions that feed into the Nats would therefore have to use 2015 as well.

Quite a few styles have moved around somewhat - as one example Dortmunder Export no longer exits as such, is now German Helles Exportbier, and has been moved from Light Lagers to Light Bitter Euro beers.

So plan of attack pretty much hinges on aiming for a placing in a particular category to qualify for entering the same category in the Nats.

State / Nats categories would have to line up the same to allow for smooth "flow through" of competitors.

Particularly important to lager brewers who should be brewing right now B)

 

[NealK]

Would be interesting to know if this is true. Vicbrew have announced some changes for 2016 but not a change in the categories.

 

[Black n Tan]

It is far from clear which guidelines will be used. The VicBrew and AABC website do not have any information. However I note that SA state they are not using the BJCP 2015 guidelines for the state competition. I have send a query to VicBrew and will post a response when received.

 

[Yob]

wouldn't you just have to know which cat is is for which comp?

they wont necessarily have to be aligned, youll just need to know the difference.

 

[RdeVjun]

More or less Yob, though as I understand it that would be provided the brewer's number of entries in a category doesn't exceed that which is allowed.
I too would rather some clear advice from the state comps.
Having said that, like Bribie some time ago I perused the 2015 guidelines with a view to tailoring my entries. But in the end because there were those changes in 2015 lagers and the mapping wasn't obvious I figured I would have to wing it and just hope that when the comps decided which edition would float that I would be able to slot all my entries in, regardless of whether it was 2015 or not. Not ideal really, that's all I can do though, it's a bit first worldish but even so...

 

[Yob]

Wouldn't that mean they have to talk to each other?

Now you're asking some REAL ****...

 

[GalBrew]

It's going to be a brave state that goes to 2015 guidelines before AABC does.

 

[Bribie G]

Yes there could be some nasty gotchas. For example I'd be really pissed off if I'd brewed an American Pale Ale and an American Amber Ale with my eye on the National Competition, where they are in two different categories in the #2015.

Then after brewing my beers I discover that the State Comp was running on the #2008 where these two beers are in the same category.

Then somebody whacks out my Amber with an APA which I wouldn't regard as a fair outcome.

However that niggle aside, more fundamentally, if the State rules state that I can only enter two styles per category then what am I going to do with the American Brown Ale that I was hoping would make it to the Nats?

Under #2008 that would be barred from the State Comp as I would already have filled my quota, but not under #2015.

Edit: in other words I wouldn't have devoted time and money to brewing the American Brown, knowing that it wasn't eligible to be brewed under State rules.

That's why it would be good to know what's happening as brewing season is upon us.

 

[RdeVjun]

Got it in one Bribie, that's pretty much the scenario which I was thinking about.

 

[Black n Tan]

I agree that it avoids problems if the state and AABC are aligned. However remember that the AABC doesn't adopt the BJCP styles and categories as a whole. They pick and chose their styles and arrange the categories such that they are manageable from a competition perspective. So the AABC 2012 adopted many of the BJCP 2008 styles but the AABC had 18 categories whilst the BJCP had 23 categories.

 

[Bribie G]

Yes of course there are special circumstances such as Australian light / standard / premium lagers etc, and I see that there is now a Commonwealth beers category including Australian Pale Ales, no doubt there due to the tireless efforts of our own research machine Korev. (ed: Peter's listed in the credits at the front of the 2015 guide)

Point I'm making is that it would be really good at this time of the brewing year for the State and Nats websites to announce what guidelines they are actually going to be judging on, so we can sharpen our urns and roger our grainfathers (that could be ugly) h34r:

Even if it's just a case, at the moment to say "same as last year" so there's a point of ref.

 

[Black n Tan]

Bribie, were are in fierce agreement. Hopefully we'll know soon as I have a brewing schedule based on last years categories.