Abbreviations

[AidanMac56]

Would some kindly brewer please decipher the following for me, BJCP & IBD. I see these all over the place but can't find what they mean 🙄

[mick02]

BJCP stands for Beer Judge Certification Program and IBD is the institute of brewing and distilling

[pob]

The BJCP have broken beer styles into categories, eg 16B Oatmeal Stout style is in the 16 Dark British beer category.

Each style has defining guidelines which then make it easier to base competitions on, ie comparing similar styles against each other.

It doesn't really have a bearing on how commercial beers are brewed/named, as it's aimed at homebrew competitions, but a lot of breweries do classify their beers based on them.

If you say your beer is an American IPA, most people would then have a rough idea on what to expect it will be like,ie pale & very hoppy, as opposed to malty & roasty.