Introduction
The kickstarter for our March 2025 competition was one of our member’s very classic West Coast IPAs. It was very malty, bitter, and earthy/floral rather than fruit forward. In short; a beer that you can’t really find in pubs and stores anymore.
Time for a rarely found beers competition!
The rules
It’s one of our specific competitions. This means that the beer needs to fit in either BJCP (BJCP 2021) or Brewers Association style guidelines (2023 Guidelines). You can enter your beer as any style you choose and it will be judged on these criteria.
An additional criterion is that we want to stay away from very generic style guidelines such as fruited beers or historic beers. The reason is that it’s impossible to judge a beer that can be anywhere from pale to black or from no bitterness to extremely bitter. Brew and enter a beer that is it’s own distinct style with relatively clear style descriptor (for instance Cream Ale)!
All beers are scored using our normal BJCP score sheet (you get up to 50 points for a perfect example of the style).
You get bonus points if you brew a style that is rarely / less easily found. The main question is: Have I seen this style in the Netherlands / Amsterdam in the last year? And if I want to have one of these do I think I could find them? We will award an additional 20 points on this scale. Pilsner (Heineken) or Witbier (Ijwit) will score 0 or very low as that is available everywhere. A style that you have never seen in a bar, nor do you expect to do so might score full points.
We hope this encourages brewers to explore styles that are less common and give us a really fun tasting!
Note: We expect you to brew to style and do not add weird ingredients to make it “rarely found” (sorry for the person that wants to make an asbestos sour)
Competition details
Everyone can enter this competition; just show up with enough beer to enter. Aim bring at least 1,5L in any vessel you like, so we don’t need to resort to shot glasses đ As always, you don’t need to submit an entry to take part in the judging or attend the meeting.
Link to our competition rules:
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