BJCP Releases 2021 Beer Style Guidelines

The BJCP released the 2021 BJCP Beer Style Guidelines, a minor revision to the 2015 guidelines. If you are familiar with the 2015 guidelines, we have made a few name changes and some styles have moved from provisional, historical, or local styles into the main guidelines. We intentionally tried to keep style moves, style additions, and numbering changes to a minimum. Gordon Strong, BJCP President Emeritus and principal author of the guidelines, posted an update with details about changes in the 2021 edition. The 2015 mead and cider style guidelines remain the current versions and were not updated as part of this release. 

The 2021 guidelines are currently only available on the Style Guidelines page as Word and PDF documents. We are working to update the text of the guidelines on our website over the coming weeks. 

The grace period for using the new guidelines for the three beer exams (online, judging, and written) will be until 1 August 2022. Exams before this date should use the 2015 guidelines. Exams after this date should use the 2021 guidelines. Exam administrators and those studying for the exams should plan accordingly. Contact the Exam Directors with any exam-related questions. 

BJCP-sanctioned competitions may use either set of guidelines. Check with individual competition organizers for specific rules. The BJCP expects that by the end of 2022, all competitions will use the 2021 guidelines. Contact the Competition Director with any competition questions. 

We are also in the process of updating the print-on-demand file with our printing vendor to offer an option for members to order printed copies of the 2021 guidelines. Members may print their own copies for educational and judging purposes using their print shop of choice; we provide a copyright release to members to authorize printing for allowable purposes. 

We’d like to thank the many members who contributed feedback, suggestions, and review to this version of the style guidelines. You can continue to send style suggestions and errata to [email protected].