The Brewing Industry International Awards New website for brewing Oscars

May Mon. 17th 2010

The Brewing Industry International Awards has today launched a new website, to inform brewers across the globe of the return of this historic international competition, which takes place in Burton-on-Trent next February.

The Brewing Awards, widely dubbed the ‘Oscars’ of beer competitions, celebrate their 125th anniversary next year. The competition was last held in 2005, at Drinktec in Munich, but is now returning to its roots, having been a fixture at Burton Town Hall from the mid-1980s.  

The website, www.brewingawards.org, includes all the details brewers will need about entering beers into the competition. This includes the competition categories, which have been modified for 2011 following a thorough review by Bill Taylor, Chief Brewer at Australian & New Zealand brewer Lion Nathan and Chair of Judges. There are now nine categories and 32 classes – a slight increase on the last competition.  The Brewing Awards are still the only major international awards to have a cask beer category.

Entries open in August this year and close on 31st December, with the competition taking place in Burton from February 9th – 11th 2011. The bronze, silver and gold class winners will be announced in Burton on 11th February. The nine category winners –  selected from the gold winners for each class – will be revealed at a separate Awards ceremony on 12 April 2011 within the BFBi annual lunch at London Guildhall. All class and categories winners will receive their medals and trophies at this event.
 
Bill Taylor said, “Six years since the last Brewing Awards were held, it is clear that they still occupy a special place in the brewing world. Their heritage, their truly international reach, the unique cask category and the fact that only currently working brewers are allowed to judge them, mean that these Awards have  a unique credibility in the global brewing industry.”

The categories were reviewed by the Judging Committee which comprises, in addition to Taylor: Geoff Larson of Alaskan Brewing Company; Fritjhof Thiele of Radeberger Brewing Group and George Philliskirk of the Brewing Academy, who is acting as Chief Steward. The judges will be invited over the coming months.

 Taylor said, “We felt that coming back after several years presented an opportunity to look at the categories and ensure that they reflect recent developments in the industry.  We have  revised the classes in some competition groupings and updated the alcohol bands to better reflect what is happening in the market .

He added, “One of the strengths of the Brewing Awards  is that we have a structure of broad categories, which encourages entries from a diverse range of beers from the traditional to the innovative. The focus is on the quality attributes of the beer with a minimal use of style definitions.There is a place for every beer and every beer has a chance of winning based on the assessment of its quality and commercial worth .”

The Brewing Industry International Awards 2011 are sponsored by: BFBi, International Agri-Technology Centre, Institute of Brewing & Distilling, British Beer & Pub Association and Morning Advertiser.  Further sponsorship of category trophies is currently being sought.