Olympic-Style Awards or Inflationary Prize-Giving?

There are now a multitude of beer competitions. Winning beers are usually awarded gold, silver, and bronze. But is all gold worth the same? In theory, a gold award won in a competition that awards only one bronze, one gold, and one silver per category should be worth much more than a trophy won in a contest where every reasonably flawless beer is awarded gold. If a majority of the submitted beers receive awards—rather than just the very best—doesn’t that diminish the value of the award? Or does it? On the other hand, luck and the judges’ mood on the day also play a role in whether a beer takes first place in a close decision or perhaps ends up with the unloved “tin prize”—fourth place.

Procedures and Beer Handling

The procedures for submission or beer procurement can also vary. Many organizers place their trust in the entrants—likely mainly for financial and logistical reasons. This can potentially skew the results and even open the door to fraud. Can an organizer be 100 percent certain that a submitted bottle contains exactly the beer advertised on the label? Well, let’s assume that everyone in the beer industry is completely honest. However, beer delivered in person—fresh from the brewery—might taste just a tad better than the bottles available in stores.

Good Judges Are Essential

The quality of the judges also varies from competition to competition. On top of that, judges who are articulate and assertive—especially if they have extensive experience or are even considered “gurus”—find it easier to push their favorites through at a tasting table than quiet, contemplative types. In any case, it’s a good thing that most major competitions involve group tastings. Individual tastings are far too prone to error.

For marketing, gold is... Worth its weight in gold

Marketers don’t care about that. If a beer wins a medal somewhere, it’s immediately plastered on posters and posted on “social” media. On top of that, some competitions ride on the coattails of others. For example, in addition to what is probably the largest competition, the World Beer Cup, there are also the World Beer Awards, the World Beer Championship, and the World Beer Challenge, a competition held in Portugal. Consumers usually have no idea which competition is how important or how (strictly) it is administered, established, and run.

Useful Criteria

The EBCU (European Beer Consumers’ Union) has established criteria that can be useful for evaluating a competition. Is the tasting blind? How are the categories structured? Are a maximum of three prizes awarded per category, or are there a large number of medals per category? Is the jury truly independent? Are there perhaps other “colors” besides gold, silver, and bronze—such as “Grand Gold” or platinum—used to “gild” the silver winners?

Confusing Variety

In addition to the two renowned world championships, the “World Beer Cup” and the “European Beer Star,” several other international and regional competitions have established themselves. Here, too, the EBCU—which formally supports the competitions it audits—offers guidance. It currently lists fourteen such competitions. However, there could be even more, because “any organizer of beer competitions is free to contact the EBCU, provide proof that they meet the above-mentioned criteria, and request an audit in order to be recognized by the EBCU.”

National Championships and Regional Competitions

In addition to the two international competitions, the current EBCU list primarily includes those with a regional focus or organized as “national championships.” These include those from Austria (Austrian Beer Challenge), Finland (Suomen Paras Olut), the Czech Republic (Golden Bohemia), as well as the Dutch Beer Challenge (Netherlands), Birra dell’Anno (Italy), the Swiss Beer Award, Kraft Roku (Poland) and, new in 2026: the Greek Beer Awards.

There are also the Champion Beer of Britain and the Scottish Beer Award, the U.S. Open Beer Championship, and numerous other competitions in the U.S., some of which also evaluate other beverages, such as cider, as in the case of the International Beer and Cider Awards organized by the North American Brewers Association (NABA). Some local competitions allow only beers from a specific region to be entered, such as the Beer Alps Competition in Tyrol.

And there’s more...

In addition, there are a variety of other competitions, such as the DLG competition (gold for all “flawless” beers) and the Frankfurt International Beer Trophy; “Meininger’s International Craft Beer Award” still pops up on some websites, even though this competition has not existed for quite some time.

Our antipodes...

...host the Australian International Beer Awards, the New Zealand Beer Awards, and the New World Beer & Cider Awards, also held in New Zealand. In Africa, the African Beer Cup and the South African National Beer Trophy are significant. Also important are the Japan International Beer Cup, the China Craft Beer Competition, and the Korea International Beer Award (KIBA).

Latin America

In South America, we find yet another series of beer competitions. They take place in Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Peru, and Chile. We won’t list them individually; we’ll just mention the Concurso Brasileiro de Cervejas in Blumenau, Brazil, as representative of all the others.

By no means exhaustive

This list, of course, does not claim to be exhaustive. And should we have made any errors despite our thorough research, we ask for your forgiveness and—above all—for corrections.

Text: Sepp Wejwar
Visual: wegro communications

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