Competition Corner – January 2018
Well, a new year is upon us as well as a fresh brewing competition season. Each year, Pacific Gravity honors the brewer (or team) with the most homebrew competition wins. I’m eagerly awaiting someone to knock me off my Brewer of the Year perch! I hope you took advantage of the cool weather over the holiday season to get some batches fermenting. I did! We have a couple of competitions coming up right away, but you still have plenty of cool weather to brew for some of the later upcoming competitions. 
Coming up quickly are the America’s Finest City (AFC) Homebrew Competition, hosted by QUAFF, and the AHA Nationals Competition, and the California State Fair. Registration for AFC is already open at http://quaff.org/AFC-2018/#. Entries are due at Alesmith Brewery between January 25th and February 9th. Like last year, we will be asking for a volunteer to drive them down to San Diego. Drop me a line at Competitions AT pacificGravity.com if you can make the trip. We’ll reimburse you gas money.
For AHA, you must be an AHA member and need to sign up for your entry slots, between the dates of January 23 – 30th. Look for a personalized link in an email from the AHA. Your entry authorization and payment must be done by February 14th. Physical entries will need to be shipped off to the regional entry point of your choice by the last week of March. For those of you wishing to send beer to San Diego, we will be looking for a driver.
Coming up earlier than usual this year is the California State Fair. Registration is already up and runs through February 12th at http://home.castatefair.beer/. Entries can be dropped off of the Eagle Rock or South Bay Brew shops.
Still uncertain this year is the fate of the Los Angeles Belgian Brew Challenge. Our past organizer Brian Holter has discovered the infinite time-suck known a professional brewing and will not be available to organize this event. We are actively looking for organizers.
A new competition we are adding to the Brewer of the Year cycle is the Jeff Sanders Memorial Competition. This is a small event run by Strand with a selection of beer styles enjoyed by Jeff. Registration begins January 26th and runs through April 7th. Details can be found at http://www.jeffsandersmemorial.com/bcoem/ . The competition is limited to 100 entries, so don’t delay.
The balance of the official list of competitions for accumulating Brewer of the Year points is listed below. Check back frequently as exact dues dates become known.
For those of you who are hard-core about entering competitions, here are some more local events. In addition to our official competition list, there are a couple of other local competitions you might want to enter:
- The Doug King Memorial competition hosted by the Maltose Falcons, is looking for judges on Saturday, January 27, 2015 at 8:30 AM at MacLeod Ale Brewing Company, 14741 Calvert St, Van Nuys, CA
- The Romancing the Beer Competition, held by the Thousand Oaked Homebrewers. Registration is open now at http://www.romancingthebeer.com/ Entries are due January 27th, and can be dropped off at the Culver City, Eagle Rock or Woodland Hills brewshops. They need judges Monday Feb 6th and Saturday Feb 11th.
If you are hard-core competition junkie, there are a bazillion other contests to enter. The AHA has their master list at http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/competitions/aha-bjcp-sanctioned-competition/.
2018 Pacific Gravity Brewer of the Year Competition Schedule
Now: America’s Finest City registration open
January 25-Feb 9th Drop- off for AFC due in San Diego VOLUNTEER NEEDED
January 23-30 AHA Nationals Pre-registration
February 12 California State Fair
Late March: AHA Nationals entries due
March, TBD: Organizer needed for Los Angeles Belgian Brew Challenge
April 7: Deadline for the Jeff Sanders Memorial Competition
April Mayfaire
July Los Angeles County Fair
September Pacific Brewers Cup
October California State Homebrew Competition
