There are many homebrew competitions each year, but one of the biggest and most prestigious is the American Homebrewers Association (AHA) National Homebrew Competition (NHC). Last year, there were 9,189 first round entries from 3,492 homebrewers submitted for judging in the first round at one of 13 judging centers across the country. Over 1,300 entries made it to final round judging and 102 medals were awarded. The results are announced at the annual Homebrew Con, which is in June this year, in Nashville. All information can be found at this link.
Important Dates:
Open Enrollment Application: January 14 to January 22
Acceptance Email, Entry Registration & Payment: Notified by February 14 (7 days to pay after notification)
First Round Shipping Window: February 20 to March 5
First Round Judging: March 13 to April 5
Membership in the AHA is required for entry. (Annual membership starts at $38 – check out the benefits of membership here if you’re not already a member.)
For this competition, you submit online the beer(s) that you want judged, and pick a judging center. The AHA then lets you know if your beer is accepted for judging at that site. This has more to do with controlling the number of beers to be judged at each site, so it’s important to enter soon for your preferred site. Once your submission is approved, you have 7 days to pay your $16/entry fee. After first round judging, you’ll be informed if you have moved to the final round. At that time, you send in more beer and they now have a $9/entry fee to cover final judging costs.
We will be working with FOAM members this year to up our competition game, but please consider entering this one. This is not a High Plains event, so shipping is on your own, but we can combine entries (assuming we all pick the same judging site – most pick Kansas City) to save a few dollars on shipping.
Gary Elliott, VP-Competitions
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