Style & Competition Targets¶

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Anchors the programme to its stated goal: World-class lambic-style beers, plus the two Flanders sour-brown targets. Vital statistics from BJCP 2021 Beer Style Guidelines (bjcp.org). High confidence.

BJCP 2021 vital statistics¶

Note the FG ceilings for 23D/E/F: those beers must finish bone-dry (≤1.006 for gueuze). Slow Brett attenuation of dextrins means a beer at 1.012 at month 9 may still get there.

The Flanders pair invert that rule. 23B tolerates FG up to 1.012 and 23C requires a floor of 1.008 — residual sweetness is part of the style, not a failure to attenuate. That has three consequences for this programme:

• They cannot come off the shared turbid wort (05 §2). Both need Vienna/Munich and caramel malt for colour and unfermentable body — 10–17 SRM for 23B, 17–22 SRM for 23C, against 3–6 for lambic. Separate brew day, separate grist.
• Unrestrained Brett is a liability, not the goal. 23B lists Brettanomyces among its ingredients but wants only "low phenolic" character; 23C lists only Saccharomyces and Lactobacillus — barnyard/leather 4-EP in an Oud Bruin reads as the wrong beer, and a fully attenuating Brett population will drag FG below the style floor.
• IBU floors are real. 23B needs 10–25 and 23C 20–25, versus 0–10 for lambic. Aged hops alone will not get there; these want low-alpha continental hops used for actual bitterness, which in turn suppresses LAB (04 §11) — bitter early, sour later, or kettle-sour before the boil hops go in.

What judges reward and penalise¶

Rewarded (23E archetype): complex interplay of moderate sourness, Brett character (barnyard, hay, leather, light smoke), citrus/stone-fruit esters, high effervescent carbonation, dry finish, no single dominant note. Balanced 4-EP:4-EG (roughly 2:1 to 3:1) reads as "complex funk"; 4-EP alone reads one-dimensional.

Rewarded (23B archetype): a fruity-sour profile over a supporting malt base — dark cherry, plum, citrus and stone fruit esters, moderate lactic sourness with a restrained acetic edge, oak tannin, low vanilla or spice. Malt sweetness recedes as sourness rises, which is the balance judges look for. Low to medium carbonation, medium body, mild astringency from tannin, "prickly" acidity. The archetype is Rodenbach Grand Cru: a young/old blend, not a single vessel.

Rewarded (23C archetype): malt first — raisin, plum, fig, cherry, caramel, light chocolate — with an aged sourness sitting underneath rather than leading, and sherry-like oxidative complexity in mature examples. Medium to medium-full body, low to moderate carbonation, no astringency. Less acidic and maltier than 23B, and usually stronger.

Fault list mapped to this programme's chemistry:

Additional faults specific to 23B/23C:

Carbonation targets: gueuze 3.0–4.0 volumes CO₂ (champagne bottles only, corked and caged/capped); straight lambic may be entered still or lightly carbonated; fruit lambic 2.5–3.5 volumes. High carbonation is a scoring feature of 23E — under-carbonated gueuze loses points before flavour is judged. 23B and 23C are the opposite case: low to medium for 23B, low to moderate for 23C — roughly 1.8–2.4 volumes, standard 330 ml bottles, no champagne glass needed. Over-carbonating either one pushes the acidity forward and reads as a lambic entered in the wrong category.

Entry timing against flavour trajectory¶

• Ester-forward beers (tropical Brett): enter young — within ~2–4 months of bottling, refrigerated storage. The MCFA ester pool decays at cellar temperature.
• Funk-forward / gueuze: enter mature — phenols are stable; bottle conditioning 6+ months improves integration and carbonation. Blend for the judging table, not the brewery floor: aim final 4-EP in the 600–1,000 µg/L range, not donor-carboy levels.
• Fruit lambic: enter while fruit aroma is fresh; fruit top-note fades before Brett character does. A second small fruit dose pre-bottling (see 07) buys aroma at judging time.
• 23B Flanders Red: enter mature and blended. The style is defined by young/old blending — traditional practice runs 18 months to 2 years on oak for the old component, cut with a young, malt-forward, lightly-soured beer to restore the fruit and sweetness the aged component has lost. A single-vessel 23B almost always reads either too sweet or too sour. Budget the blending stock a year ahead (06).
• 23C Oud Bruin: enter mature, blended if possible, but the ageing target is oxidative depth rather than acid development — the sherry/raisin note is what separates a scoring Oud Bruin from a sweet brown ale with a squeeze of acid. Time in sealed glass, not oak.

Declared-style discipline¶

Fruit lambic entries must declare the fruit; hybrid/experimental additions (hibiscus, botanicals) usually fit better in 28C Wild Specialty Beer than 23F — a beer with obvious hibiscus colour entered as 23F invites a "not to style" score. Decide the category before designing the addition schedule, not after.

The same discipline applies across the Flanders pair. 23B versus 23C is decided by acid level, colour and malt weight, not by intent: if the beer is dark, malty, only mildly sour and carries oxidative raisin/fig depth, enter 23C even if it was brewed as a red; if it is redder, leaner, distinctly sour with cherry fruit and tannin, enter 23B. Judges score against the category on the sheet, and the two styles share a fault list but not a balance point. A fruited Flanders Red (a "kriek-style" red) is a 28C entry, not 23B — and a Flanders/lambic hybrid that carries real barnyard funk over a caramel malt base belongs in 28C as well, where the funk is an asset rather than a style deviation.