For those familiar with BJCP and homebrew competition... I'm entering a competition that is using the 2008 BJCP guidelines and thinking of entering my saison (fermentables: 20% honey, 80% malt) multiple times. My plan was to enter it as a Saison and a Braggot... until I read the style guide. The guide states "products with a relatively low proportion of honey should be entered in the Specialty Beer category as a Honey Beer." It does not, however, define "low proportion" or suggest how much honey ought to be in a braggot. So what do you think? Is my Saison a braggot? A honey beer? None of the above?
Not a Braggot expert, but 20% doesn't seem like a sufficient amount of honey. I'd enter it as a Saison and /or Specialty Beer
IMO probably not a braggot. If you get substantial honey flavor/aroma, then belgian specialty beer. If not, then saison. And of course, if entries aren't limited, you could enter in belgian specialty and in saison.
You need to base it on taste, not percentages, although 50/50 is probably a reasonable cutoff, or maybe 60/40. If it tastes like a mead with a little malt, it's a braggot. If it tastes like a beer with honey in it, it's a honey beer. Mead people would probably get PO'ed if you called this one a braggot. Hell... I'm sure I've used honey in a beer before, maybe not 20% but perhaps 15%, and I would never think of calling it a braggot. It's just a honey flavored beer.
I seem to remember some advice in Gordon Strong's Brewing Better Beer about figuring out what style your beer belongs in. This is the closest passage I can find right now: "Enter wisely; don't enter your beer in a certain style category if it doesn't fit. It doesn't matter what you intended to brew, it matters how the judges will perceive it—select the best match." (Emphasis added.) In other words, the cutoff is not a quantitative one, it's a sensory one. (While I was writing this, I see that @dmtaylor gave the same advice.) By way of example, the line between APA and IPA isn't a certain amount of IBU's or a certain quantity of hops per gallon. It's the character in the glass. You could brew what you think is going to be a killer IPA that, once you taste it, you realize belongs in the APA category. That said, I take it from other people's comments that it is fairly unlikely you are going to get enough honey character from 20% honey to enter the beer as a braggot.
Careful with this thread... I started a braggot recipe thread before and it got pulled from the site. I don't know why, because it's not a mead but whatever. I've used a decent amount of orange blossom honey in a saison before, and it was indeed still classified as a saison. I wouldn't consider it a braggot unless you've used a decent amount of honey - like 6 lbs or more, or 50/50 honey vs grain. Would love to try brewing one again but getting good local honey gets quite expensive.
Honey honey honey honey honey honey honey honey honey honey honey honey honey honey honey honey honey honey honey honey honey honey honey honey honey honey honey flavored beer. There. That's a beer related post. We'll see if it stays.
Braggot is a mead that gets an indeterminate amount of fermentables from barley, while a honey beer is a beer that gets an indeterminate amount of fermentables from honey.
You needed to mention honey a few more times, then it'd be taken down. All I'm saying was I started a thread once on this subject, and it was removed. No need to burn this one into the ground. Right. I guess it's just how i worded it then.. braggot is an ale-mead hybrid, but it's not a 'mead'. If it were then it couldn't be classified as a beer.
One fun fact is that a Meadery can't make a braggot in the US, as they are viewed as a winery by the TTB, and can't have malt on the premise. That is why you see a Meadery team up,with a brewery to make a Braggot. Cigar City made a few with B Nektar (Meadery) from Michigan. B Nektar now has a Brewers license and brew house so that they can make Braggot and beer. Braggot is listed as a style here. Don't know why the thread got deleted. http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/style/114/
It appears that the removal of your thread was a mistake as Braggot is a beer style listed on BA. I apologize for any incontinence this may have caused. This thread will not be removed.
No worries! all good. The thread had started as a braggot recipe critique, and the debate slowly changed to a more 'mead-focused' thread. That's probably why it was removed.
Yeah, once it jumps ship away from additive (honey, apples, grapes, etc., in a beer) to simply fermenting said additives on their own then the thread will inevitably be shut down, or at least the offending posts deleted if the thread still remains on course.
Quoted for effect. Ultimately, I think the defining range of "low proportion" comes down to how much the honey comes through in the finished product, and not the literal ratio numbers. However, at 20% honey I would not enter it in the Braggot category.
Funny you should bring this up, I was envisioning something more like sharting. And with these comments, this very thread is indeed beginning to resemble incontinence. I'm sorry, I just couldn't contain myself either.
By letting comments like this flow, it's hard to hold back! @aobrehm sorry for veering off topic. Hopefully some of the earlier comments answered your question.
If you are entering a commercial Braggot into the Mazer Cup (International Commercial Mead Competition), honey needs to be used for least 20% of the fermentables.
I agree with the comments about sensory perception being the deciding factor. I have had one commercial braggot, at an event at white winter winery in n wi (they make mead). I brewed one recipe that was like Baltic porter with 50% honey. The Homebrew was comparable to the commercial. That's where I would start.
