Brewers Association adds Rice Lager category to 2026 Guidelines

The Brewers Association updated its Beer Style Guidelines to add a new Rice lager category and to refine several Belgian and German style descriptions. The change, announced on January 14, 2026 and authored by Brewers Association technical staff, formalizes a trend among craft brewers using rice as a purposeful fermentable to craft lighter, sessionable lagers.

Rice lager is defined by the Guidelines as a beer that uses rice at 15% or more of the grist. The new entry recognizes rice's range of impacts on lagers: some varieties are neutral and accentuate drinkability, while others lend nutty, savory, or aromatic character. That range gives brewers a palette for tuning body, attenuation, and subtle flavor notes without resorting to high hopping or adjunct sugars.

Alongside the new category, the Guidelines include targeted revisions to Belgian and German style descriptions based on feedback from judges and brewers. Those updates clarify sensory expectations and scoring criteria at competitions, and reinforce the Guidelines' role as a shared reference for industry practice and contest administration.

Practical implications are immediate. Update your competition rules and judging sheets to include Rice lager where appropriate, and adjust entry guidance to reflect the 15% grist threshold. Judges and stewards should include rice-derived character in tasting notes and scoring, separating neutral rice attenuation from varietal flavors that can shift a beer toward more savory or aromatic profiles. Brewers planning new recipes can treat rice as a deliberate tool for sessionability and mouthfeel control rather than merely a filler adjunct.

The Brewers Association points brewers, competition organizers, and publishers to the full, downloadable Guidelines at brewersassociation.org. When republishing text from the Guidelines, follow the required attribution language specified by the Association to avoid copyright or attribution issues. The announcement makes clear the Guidelines remain the industry's primary competition reference and living document for style interpretation.

For the brewing community this change legitimizes rice-led innovation and asks everyone in the circuit to align: recipe writers to declare rice percentage in entry forms, judges to calibrate expectations for rice character, and organizers to refresh style lists. Expect Rice lager to appear on more festival taps and comp score sheets this year as brewers experiment with rice varieties and the grain’s subtler flavor contributions.