Competition style

[hilts]

I would like to enter my honey porter in the state homebrew competition. Should I enter it as an American Porter 20A, or as Alternative Sugar Beer 31B? There isn't a ton of honey flavor, but it is present. There is only 1# honey per 5 gallons. Recipe for 25 gallons:

50lb American 2 row
4.4lb Biscuit malt
2lb Chocolate malt
1lb Black patent malt
14oz Debittered black malt
1lb Caramel 60

3.5oz Zeus 60 min
5oz Tettnang 5 min
5oz Peels dry hop 3 days

5lb Clover honey (added after three days of fermentation)

Yeast was US05

Side question - am I putting this question in the right place? Is there somewhere else this should be, like recipes/ingredients?.

 

[dmtaylor]

I would just enter as regular porter.

I'm not sure which subforum is best... and don't really care since I read all of them anyway.

 

[Amadeo38]

If the honey flavor is mild enough that a blind taster (who doesn’t know there is honey) cannot detect that flavor, then regular porter would be fine. However, a good strategy would be to look at how many entries there were in each of those categories the previous year and pick the one with the fewest entries. You’ll have a greater chance of winning a medal that way.

 

[Pappers_]

If the honey flavor is mild enough that a blind taster (who doesn’t know there is honey) cannot detect that flavor, then regular porter would be fine. However, a good strategy would be to look at how many entries there were in each of those categories the previous year and pick the one with the fewest entries. You’ll have a greater chance of winning a medal that way.

Completely agree on the honey flavor.

Looking at the size of previous years' categories makes sense, except that every competition combines categories into tables, and the tables are where the medals are awarded. This gets especially tricky with 'specialty' categories like the alternative sugar style. You just don't know what the organizers are going to combine it with - could be wood aged beers or spice/herb/vegetable or whatever. The porter could be combined with stouts, or dark British beers, or any number of combinations. But you could assume the same combinations, etc. and go by that.

Also, there's nothing wrong with entering it twice, in both categories.

 

[hilts]

Thank you all for the feedback. I have decided to enter as a 20a American Porter, as everyone suggests. I will post results when they're in.