I posted some IPA recipes recently based on the new expanded India Pale Ale category from the draft of the 2014 BJCP style guidelines. Now, that section is just a small part of the full guidelines, which have many categories expanding and/or changing.

For this post, I thought I would take a closer look at the draft and discuss with you some of the changes.

The changes have some solid implications. For one, we have to change our beer recipes page. I mean, isn’t that huge? Ok, it’s not.

The biggest impact the changes will have on these brew dudes and others is beer competitions. With the changing categories, it means you can submit more sub-styles of beers that were not recognized before.

Mike and I are brewing up beers for the New England Regional Homebrew Competition, which is taking place this October. I wonder if the new guidelines will be finalized by then and if the organizers of the competition will be following them. How soon will other competitions make the change?

Not that it matters much since we will brewing styles that are still current with the 2008 guidelines, but looking at this new set, it’s amazing to see how many new kinds of beers will now be recognized by this organization.

Styles like Gose, Kellerbier, and Sahti were not ones you could enter into competition outside of the specialty beer category. I know I have learned about these styles within the past 6 years – It’s cool to see that the BJCP has researched them and has some notes about each.

The other great things I am picking up from the new guidelines is the expansion of categories. Beyond the IPA one, Czech Lagers now have a category all to their own with 4 styles in it. There are some switching around of styles too using geography as a guide. One category that stood out to me was the Irish Beer category. If these guidelines hold, then your Irish Red Ale will be going against someone else’s Irish Stout or Irish Extra Stout.

Not sure everyone is interested in the expansion of the cider and mead categories, but now each of these beverages has more detailed styles within them.

If you haven’t been on the BJCP site to see them, go there now and look through the PDF or for a quick reference of the changes, there is an excel sheet too.

What are your thoughts? It’s a big change if you’re into following the org’s standards of beer styles. Check them out and leave a comment below.