Fruit or wheat?

[FedoraDave]

I'm posting this here because I'm hoping for more people to read and comment than if I posted it in the Competitions forum.

Here's the sitch:

I've got a recipe that I really like; Sunbonnet Lemon Wheat. It's pretty much a lawnmower wheat beer with lemon zest thrown in a few days before bottling/kegging. Well, I thought it would be fun to enter it in a competition or two and see what kind of reaction I get from the judges. Not that I would change anything based on their scores or opinions, but I'd just be interested.

But would it come under the category of an American Wheat or a Fruit Beer? The BJCP Guidelines don't really help much. I'm thinking it would be a Fruit Beer, just because the lemon zest defines the whole.

Your thoughts?

[John Sand]

You could always use the catch all of Specialty Beer.

[bpgreen]

I've never entered a competition, so take this with a grain of salt.

My first thought was that it would be a wheat beer, partly because I know there are wheat beers that include additions of various fruits and fruit flavors.

But when I read the BJCP guidelines, I didn't see anything about fruit or fruit flavors in wheats (other than those imparted by the yeast as esters/phenols).

So I read the fruit description.

From your description of this beer, I think it most closely fits the description for a fruit beer in the BJCP guidelines.

[Inkleg]

Why not both?
If the base beer is a good wheat you can enter it in 1D American Wheat and put in the notes that lemon zest is added. They will judge it as a Wheat knowing lemon is added. You can go 29A and they will judge the base beer and the lemon.

[FedoraDave]

Why not both?
If the base beer is a good wheat you can enter it in 1D American Wheat and put in the notes that lemon zest is added. They will judge it as a Wheat knowing lemon is added. You can go 29A and they will judge the base beer and the lemon.

Hmm...Can I do that within the same competition? I guess so, though. The same judges aren't judging 1D and 29A, are they? Not a bad idea, Jeff.

[Inkleg]

Hmm...Can I do that within the same competition? I guess so, though. The same judges aren't judging 1D and 29A, are they?

Yep, it will only cost you another entry fee and two more beers and you get double feed back. It probably will not be the same judges, but if they are they will judge it per BJCP guidelines for the style.
Though I don't advise entering it in 20C. It would be dinged pretty hard in the Russian Imperial category.

[FedoraDave]

Dang. Probably not a good idea to call it an IPA, either, you s'pose?