Submitting a lambic in a comp

[GRBC]

That is using the 2015 BJCP style guide. Would you carbonate, or bottle still? My gut says carbonate, but don't want to get dinged for something that is easy to control. I'm thinking of carbonating to about 2 volumes.

Here's the relevant section from the style guide:
Mouthfeel: Light to medium-light body. In spite of the low finishing gravity, the many mouth-filling flavors prevent the beer from feeling like water. As a rule of thumb, lambic dries with age, which makes dryness a reasonable indicator of age. Has a medium to high tart, puckering quality without being sharply astringent. Traditional versions are virtually to completely uncarbonated, but bottled examples can pick up moderate carbonation with age.

 

[Tetrarch]

Still, carbing hides things

 

[specharka]

That style guide is very misleading. "Traditional" unblended lambic is cask conditioned and virtually unobtainable outside of the Lembeek valley in Belgium -- they don't bottle or export it. In contrast, gueuze is one of the most highly carbonated varieties at 3.5-4.5 volumes. My guess is you're going to be judged by someone more acclimated to gueuze, so you'll never know what carbonation to target.

My suggestion would be to submit under the American Wild Ale category (28B), thus avoiding the narrow range, and just carbonate it to whatever you like. A lot of wild ale breweries force carbonate and prime with sugar and yeast to produce a consistent carbonation level and scavenge oxygen from the bottle headspace.

 

[LakesideBrewing]

Absolutely carbonate.

 

[microbusbrewery]

I'd go uncarb'd or with just a touch of carbonation. I agree, the judges probably won't be familiar with traditional lambic, but the guidelines specifically describe a traditionally uncarbonated beer for 23D (in three different places). Even though the judges may be unfamiliar with commercial examples, they should be able to read. It'll likely be grouped together with other entries from category 23, so they should be reading the descriptions of all of them.

 

[GRBC]

Carbed it. Won the category. Cheers HBT!

 

[505-Brewer]

Had this issue in the past. Lambic slightly carbed judges said it should be flat. Won gold high score. Lambic served flat judges said need carb like geuze. Low score won gold. Judges apparently cant read.

So it doesnt matter?

Congrats.