BeerSmith Home Brewing News

New BJCP 2015 Style Guidelines for BeerSmith Desktop

I'm happy to announce the updated BJCP style guide for BeerSmith 2.  A little over a week ago the Beer Judge Certification Program released the final version of their new BJCP 2015 style guide at www.BJCP.org.  I've just released an add-on for BeerSmith desktop (see details below) so you can begin using the new style guide with BeerSmith.

Quick Guide to Getting the BJCP 2015 Desktop Add-on

The 2015 style guide is available for BeerSmith desktop as an add-on, which makes it easy to download and use in BeerSmith.  Future versions of BeerSmith will include it by default.

• Click on Add-ons (on the lower toolbar) and then Add to bring up the list of add-ons
• Select the "BJCP 2015" style guide add-on and install it
• After you've installed the add-on close the add-on dialogs and go to Options->Brewing
• From that dialog set "BJCP 2015" as the display style guide
• Click OK to save your changes and you can browse the new style guide under Profiles->Style or use it in any recipe

NOTE: BeerSmith mobile is in the process of being updated as well - see below

The New BJCP 2015 Style Guidelines

The BJCP style guidelines are used for virtually all home brewing competitions in the United States, as well as many international competitions.  They are also used to certify beer judges and as a style reference for both home and professional brewers around the world.  The BJCP intends to start testing against the new guidelines for all exams after 1 November 2015, and expects that all competitions will be using the new guidelines by the end of 2015.

The guide was last revised in 2008.  The new 2015 revisions include separate style guides for beer, mead and cider, even though these were grouped into a single guide in the old 2008 edition.

The new 2015 guide is substantially larger, and includes major revisions. First the entire style category system has been revised to better reflect the judging of similar beers in an effort to make it easier for competition organizers to set up judging panels.  Also every beer style description has been updated and expanded to include more information about the style, its history, ingredients, and a detailed profile of the beer.

New beer styles and categories like Czech Lager were added, and for many of the open categories like historical beer (category 27) now have a series of specific sub-style examples defined.  The overall number of styles is about 25% larger than the old guide.

BJCP Style Guide for BeerSmith Mobile Coming Soon

I'm also updating the style guide for BeerSmith mobile.  It will be incorporated in releases 2.2.47 and later, and should be available on Android and Kindle Fire shortly, and iPhone/iPad a few weeks later (as soon as it goes through the approval process).  The new version will incorporate the BJCP 2015 guide as the default, but on the "full" mobile version you will be able to display the old 2008 guidelines as well by going to Options->Advanced.

Mobile Device Support on BeerSmith.com

I've also revised the BeerSmith websites including BeerSmith.com, the blog at BeerSmith.com/blog, the Wiki at BrewWiki.com, and our discussion forum at BeerSmith.com/forum with a mobile friendly theme so you can more easily read and use these sites from your phone or tablet.  I hope you enjoy the new format.

Thank you again for your continued support!

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