Style of the Month Competitions

The purpose of the style meetings is to help the members of the club learn to appreciate the various styles of beer. Each meeting, a different style will be featured. These nights are intended to coincide with competitions. That is, each brewer who wishes to participate can bring their interpretation of the style, with an impartial panel of judges rating each. At the end, one beer will be crowned as winner of that style competition.

The purpose of the competitions at our meetings are two fold: develop the appreciation of varying beer styles, and learn to recognize attributes particular to those styles. These two purposes walk hand-in-hand. Being able to consistently reproduce a favorable attribute and simultaneously remove undesirable attributes is the brewer's art. Providing an open, honest forum for the evaluation of each different style gives participants (those who brought samples for evaluation) feedback on the end result of their brewing technique.

The annual schedule of styles is intended to help the members of the club learn to appreciate the various styles of beer. Attending members participate as judges, evaluating and scoring each entry according to BJCP guidelines. Each month the evaluated beers are awarded points based on their placement in the competition. First place garners 3 points, second place 2 points, third place 1 point and 0.5 points is given to all other participants. The Ames Brewers League "Brewer of the Year" award is bestowed on the brewer with the most cumulative points at the end of the calendar year.

Evaluation also gives members who are training to become beer judges the opportunity to distinguish and differentiate the various flavor, aroma and appearance characteristics of the style being judged. The style guidelines are those published annually by the BJCP. These guidelines are being used by most, if not all, major competitions across the country. The BJCP Category column of the competion calendar contains links to the style guidelines for each month's style(s), or you can obtain the full guidelines in html format here.

The styles in bold on the calendar indicate the Club's competition will yield the ABL entry to the AHA Club-Only Competition on the same style. The style meetings are designed to precede the AHA competition by one month so we can arrange the shipment of the entry to the contest site in advance.