[Jeff]

I have NEIPA that I brewed for NHC, but I'm having second thoughts about entering it.  It has lactose, vanilla bean and I added 5lbs of Mango puree to the secondary.  I have it under 21B now, but thinking it might be better to enter under Fruit Beer, or possibly enter a different beer altogether.  Thoughts?

[Wilbur]

I've saved a handy Q&A on the BJCP website:
http://dev.bjcp.org/newsletter/specialty-ipa-clarifications-and-qa/

Here's another handy Q&A:
http://dev.bjcp.org/newsletter/faqs-1-sour-fruit-beers-specialty-ipas-gruit-and-english-brown/

Q: If I add fruit or another special ingredient to an IPA, should I enter it as a Specialty IPA?
A: No. Your entry should go into one of the appropriate specialty beer categories. An IPA with fruit would be a Fruit Beer. An IPA with chilies should be entered as Spice/Herb/Vegetable Beer. Specialty IPA entries should be reserved for widely accepted IPA modifications that usually involve more than just adding one specialty ingredient.

One way to think about this would is to think about what a competition entry write-up for a Grapefruit IPA would look like. It would be something like “American IPA with Grapefruit.” That’s not a new style, it’s a classic style with fruit added, so it should be entered as a Fruit Beer (this is the same logic used for the fruited Berliner Weiss example above). Most of the currently declared Specialty IPAs are style hybrids that generally go beyond taking a classic style IPA and adding a single special ingredient. Rye IPA is an exception, but Rye IPA is a clearly defined Specialty IPA style that is brewed frequently by both commercial and home brewers.

Hopefully these help you, although it sounds like there's a lot going on in that beer.

[Jeff]

I guess my hesitation to enter it as a fruit beer is that the mango is apparent, but I've had NEIPA's with this level of fruit character from the copious amounts of fruity dry hops.

[ynotbrusum]

Maybe enter it as a 29B category beer - Fruit and Spice with a base as an IPA, is one way to go.  The lactose is an un-fermentable ingredient, which throws it a bit sideways, but I think it still fits as 29B.

[ethinson]

I would certainly enter it as a fruit beer. 

The lactose and vanilla are Spice Herb Veg, but with the mango I still think that would go fruit. 

29B Fruit and Spice would certainly fit.