Chocolate Oatmeal Stout Category?

Northern Brewer General
1

Thinking about entering my first competition. I was going to wait until I brewed my ESB again in a month or so but right now I have my chocolate oatmeal stout which I think is pretty good but still want some feedback on. I designed it to fit right into the parameters of the oatmeal stout category and everything is pretty much right down the middle. But then it has the chocolate bitterness added with the coco nibs.

So my question is whether or not the coco nibs push it into the specialty category because they are an unusual ingredient. They are pretty pronounced in the end product which makes me think they do but then again I have no idea what I’m doing.

Advice???

2

I think you have the right idea, 23 specialty category. Although you could enter it as an oatmeal stout too, I don’t know that the chocolate flavor would be so exagerated as to be outside of the guidelines. They list chocolate as a descriptor after all.

I’ve gotten a nutty kind of flaovr from cacao nibs, maybe mine aren’t roasted as dark as yours.