NEW BJCP STYLE GUIDELINES!

This was meant to get in the latest issue of The Boiler, but it got left out somehow... - Al ------------------ 2004 REVISION TO THE BJCP STYLE GUIDELINES NOW ONLINE The Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) recently released the 2004 revision of the beer styles that are used by almost all homebrew competitions. http://www.bjcp.org/styles04/ The last time the beer style guidelines were updated was in 1999, with a minor revision in 2001. Since then several new styles have appeared in the market, and several old styles have been re-discovered by homebrewers. The 2004 revision of the style guidelines reflect these new/rediscovered styles. There have also been some deletions from the 1999 style guidelines, namely Traditional Mead and Varietal Mead. These have been re-defined by the Sweet, Semi-Sweet and Dry Mead categories in the new guidelines. Also, the former Light/Standard Premium American Lager category has been re-defined by breaking each of the three into it's own sub-style. Where there were formerly 26 styles and 81 sub-styles, the 2004 guidelines delineate 28 styles and 99 sub-styles. Taking into account the three styles that were deleted, that means a total of 18 new sub-styles are defined in the new guidelines. The new styles are listed below. NEW STYLES IN THE 2004 BJCP STYLE GUIDELINES # LTR CATEGORY SUB-CATEGORY 1 A Light Lager Lite American Lager 1 B Light Lager Standard American Lager 1 C Light Lager Premium American Lager 9 D Scottish and Irish Ale Irish Red Ale 12 C Porter Baltic Porter 13 E Stout American Stout 14 B India Pale Ale American IPA 14 C India Pale Ale Imperial IPA 15 D German Wheat & Rye Beer Roggenbier (German Rye Beer) 18 A Belgian Strong Ale Belgian Blond Ale 21 B Spice/Herb/Veg Beer Christmas/Winter Specialty Spiced Beer 22 C Smoke-Flav. & Wood Aged Wood-Aged Beer 24 A Traditional Mead Dry Mead 24 B Traditional Mead Semi-Sweet Mead 24 C Traditional Mead Sweet Mead 27 B Standard Cider and Perry English Cider 27 C Standard Cider and Perry French Cider 27 D Standard Cider and Perry Common Perry 27 E Standard Cider and Perry Traditional Perry 28 B Specialty Cider and Perry Fruit Cider 28 C Specialty Cider and Perry Apple Wine 1999 BJCP STYLES THAT HAVE CHANGED OR ARE GONE # LTR CATEGORY SUB-CATEGORY 1 A American Lager Light/Standard/Premium 25 A Mead Traditional Mead 25 B Mead Varietal Honey Trad.Mead The new guidelines are online at: http://www.bjcp.org/styles04/ Even if you have no intention of brewing any of the new styles, it is worth your time to read the new guidelines. There have been changes to the existing styles as well - mostly subtle, but sometimes subtle is the difference between a good beer and a great beer. The new guidelines are officially set to replace the old guidelines on January 1, 2005, although there are a few competitions that have already switched to the new guidelines. To avoid confusion (or perhaps to maximize it...), the authors have gone out of their way to make sure that the style numbers and letters that were paired with the styles in the old guidelines are all different with the new guidelines. The old guidelines will be preserved on the BJCP Website, in a special archive section for historical purposes. The new guidelines will be covered in the Winter 2005 BJCP class sponsored by the MhBA. Now is a great time to take the BJCP class to learn these new styles, or to re-take the class to get a primer on them. The Winter 2005 BJCP class is being organized by Jonathan Crist, and will be starting January 6, 2005. You can contact Jonathan at cristj(a)bsci.com. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Electronic Privacy Notice. This e-mail, and any attachments, contains information that is, or may be, covered by electronic communications privacy laws, and is also confidential and proprietary in nature. If you are not the intended recipient, please be advised that you are legally prohibited from retaining, using, copying, distributing, or otherwise disclosing this information in any manner. Instead, please reply to the sender that you have received this communication in error, and then immediately delete it. Thank you in advance for your cooperation. ==============================================================================