Entering your first homebrew competition

Why enter at all

Friends are kind about your beer. Judges are not unkind, but they are specific. Most homebrew competitions are judged against the BJCP style guidelines. Each beer gets a written scoresheet from at least two judges.

The scoresheet is out of 50. Aroma carries 12 points, appearance 3, flavour 20, mouthfeel 5 and overall impression 10. Judges are asked to say what they found and how to fix it. That written feedback is worth more than any medal.

Before entering, check where you stand legally. Rules on making beer at home differ between Indian states and change, so read your state's current position.

Choose the right category

This is where most first entries lose points. Judges score your beer against the style you entered, not against how much they like it. A lovely hazy pale ale entered as an English bitter will score badly.

Read the guideline for the style before you brew, or at least before you enter. Check the numbers: gravity, bitterness, colour and carbonation. Then taste your beer honestly against the description. If it does not fit where you meant it to, look for the category it does fit. Many competitions have a speciality or experimental category for beers with added ingredients.

Clean, simple styles are a good first entry. A well-made pale lager or dry stout tells you a lot about your process, because there is nothing to hide behind. Judges will also look at colour, so check yours against the style using our guide to beer colour, SRM and EBC.

Prepare the bottles

• Use the bottle type and number the competition asks for, usually two or three per entry.
• Plain bottles with no labels, paint or raised lettering. Plain caps with no markings. Entries are judged blind.
• Attach the entry label with a rubber band if that is what the rules say, not glue.
• Fill carefully with minimal headspace and as little oxygen pickup as you can manage.

If you keg, fill bottles from the keg with a counter-pressure or beer gun method rather than pouring from a tap, which loses carbonation and picks up oxygen. Our kegging guide covers bottling from a keg.

Fill one extra bottle and open it a few days before the deadline. If it gushes, the judges will see the same thing. You can still pull the entry.

Getting beer there in Indian conditions

Heat is the enemy. A box of bottles left in a courier van at 35 °C for two days will arrive oxidised. Hoppy beers will have lost most of their aroma. Bottle-conditioned beers can also over-carbonate in the heat.

Deliver by hand if you can. If you must ship, keep bottles cold until the last moment, pack them upright with insulation and send them on the shortest route possible. Cooler months make all of this much easier. Check the competition's rules on shipping, because carrying alcohol between states is restricted and the organiser will tell you what is allowed.

Read the scoresheet properly

When the sheets come back, ignore the number at first. Read the comments in the aroma and flavour boxes and look for words that repeat across judges. Two judges writing "butter" or "green apple" is a pattern. One judge writing it may be noise.

Then match each comment to a cause. Our guide to common first homebrew mistakes covers the usual suspects. Most faults trace back to fermentation temperature, sanitation or oxygen after fermentation.

This is where many brewers stall. The scoresheet says "diacetyl", but knowing which step caused it and what to change next time takes structured learning. A course with a tutor tasting alongside you closes that gap faster than trial and error.

Use it to brew the next batch better

Change one thing, brew the same recipe again and enter it next time. Comparing two scoresheets for the same beer, a year apart, is the most honest measure of progress you will get.

Volunteer as a steward at a competition, too. You carry bottles and pour for judges while hearing how they talk about beer. It is also the first step if you later want to sit the BJCP judge exam.