style for competition question

I am wanting to enter a Coconut IPA into a competition coming up. What would I put this into? A fruit beer or IPA style? There is toasted coconut in the beer.
Thanks!!

Hmmm that's a good question. Kona's Koko Brown is considered a Brown Ale so i'd think u'd go IPA but there are a lot more smarter beer folk then I that can hopefully answer ur question for ya.

Either way, sounds like an interesting recipe.

#23 if the coconut is noticeable. You'd list #14B as the base style with the additional ingredient of coconut. I doubt that you'll convince a judge that coconut is a herb, spice, vegetable or fruit, so that rules out #21.

If it has the hints of the coconut ....I think fruit can work....needs to be there though

I've had beers like this and I've ended up entering all three categories and let the judges decide for sure

Personally if it hits the IPA guide numbers...I would stick to IPA ....I've had an IPA now win a few medals that has ton of tropical/fruit aroma and flavors from my hop schedule....Im intrigued now what coconut does to an IPA

Good luck

Just to reiterate what folks have pointed out here, all that matters is the flavor of the beer. It doesn't matter what ingredients went into it. So, if you can't taste any coconut, it should be entered as an IPA. If the coconut is noticeable, it should go into the herb/vegetable category (21A) - though botanically a fruit, coconuts are considered more nut/seed than fruit, so it doesn't belong in the fruit beer category (just like chili pepper beer doesn't go into the fruit beer category, even though, botanically, peppers are fruits)

What is the difference between a fruit beer and specialty beer? As dwarven put.
It has a decent amount of coconut flavor in it. Definitely noticeable. All the numbers follow an IPA though.

Matteo57 said:

What is the difference between a fruit beer and specialty beer? As dwarven put.
It has a decent amount of coconut flavor in it. Definitely noticeable. All the numbers follow an IPA though.

Click to expand...

A specialty beer (BJCP category 23) is anything that doesn't fit into any other category. A fruit beer (BJCP category 20) has a noticeable fruit component ("fruit" in the vernacular sense of the word - berries, peaches, grapes, melon, etc). If the fruit is undetectable or, even barely noticeable, it does not go into category 20 - it would go into whatever category it fits into. Since coconut is not normally considered a fruit, it would go into the vegetable/herb category (BJCP category 21A), which is also where pumpkin and chili pepper beers would go.

And to take this a little further...If you had a coconut, cherry stout, where both the coconut and the cherry were prominent, you would enter the beer into category 23, Specialty Beer, since it doesn't really fit in either 20 or 21A,

If you haven't seen it yet, all the BJCP style guidelines are online at http://www.bjcp.org