Beer Forum

Hello all,
I am an extract brewer and I was trying to make my first triple. I added half the fermentables at the beginning of the boil and was planning on adding the other half at the end. Unfortunately... or fortunately I had friends over and beer pong began and I lost track of what I was doing. I forgot to add the remaining malt extract and ended up with an original gravity of about 1.045. I fermented as usual and the F.G. was 1.009/1.010. This gives me an ABV of about 4.7%. By no means a traditional Triple. The color is very light, and there is either chill haze or something clouding up the beer. There is also a significant bitterness, since I remembered to add all of those, not overpowering to my palate but noticeable.
I have been enjoying the beer quite a bit and was thinking of entering it into several competitions, but I can't make up my mind on what category to enter it into. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Patrick

Thats really difficult to answer without tasting the beer. One of the many things I have learned from the BJCP judges in my club is that you should not stay married to what your recipe is named... sometimes a beer brewed as one thing (say a trippel) will fit the BJCP guidelines much better for some other beer. I had a beer brewed as an American Brown which won several medals as a Northern English Brown. Currently, I have a beer brewed as a scottish 70/~ which I think is spot on for Newcastle.

Bottom line - break out the BJCP guidelines and a pint of your beer... drink beer, and read guidelines see where your beer fits best enter as such.

+1, Lars said it well. It's usually best to enter based on taste, not based on what you wanted it to be. I once had a Dortmunder that turned out way too dark, it was copper in color which is quite inappropriate (because I pitched on a yeast cake from a doppelbock), and it also didn't have the nice German maltiness that I expected. So I entered it as an ESB and it scored well.

Based on the details you have provided, it appears your beer would fit into the Belgian pale category 16B. This assumes you used a Belgian yeast. If you use a dried yeast packet from a kit, it's likely not Belgian enough in character, in which case it would probably be more like an American blonde ale, category 6B. Taste and see.

As a BJCP judge I say send me some and I'll be happy to tell you