The 2014 Western Australian State Amateur Brewers Competition
(WASABC) judging is over for a another year. And which I had the privilege for the first time to participate as a steward and to see first hand how the judging was conducted over two days. The first thing that hit me was the a mount of entires this year, which is amazing, if you were to look at when it all started back in 2007 with 88 entires ,and with this year competition over 300 entires which is outstanding.
The judging was held again at La Vigna Liquor Walcott Street Menora in the Tasting room down stairs on Saturday 20th and Sunday 21st , The day commenced at 9:30am with judging started at 9:45am The stewards were brief by Head steward Jeff Mcgrath, Jeff is also the 2012 -13 WASABC Champion Brewer and 2012 WASABC Best Beer of Show trophy winner.
All judges there are BJCP certified with a couple of apprentices I was lucky enough to be the steward of a judging table with respected judges and multi awards and Trophy's winners Asher Mitchell, Jeremy Sambrooks and WCB President Sean Johnson. The Steward job was to selecting beers, cider, meads from the running sheet to be judged and moving to the judging table and pour for the judges.
The quality of the beers, ciders and meads in this years Competition to me were outstanding, this go's to show that the Home brewing in Western Australia is gaining in popularity and with fresher ingredients available to the public along with ready information via Home brew shops, Clubs, books and youtube I can see why the standard has lifted.
Day two was pretty much the same, On my table the meads were first up in the judging for the day.
This is the second year in a row that the
WASABC has included meads in the judging under
BJCP Style guidelines. Last year there was four entires this year eleven. Some meads were truly amazing. And is evident it's is going to be a growing trend so much so The Australian Amateur Brewing Championships (
AABC) has included meads for the first time into this years competition.
After lunch all 20 category's had be judged along with a clear 1st 2nd and 3rd placing being recorded from each category. The next phase was Best Of Show with all head judges gathered around one table to judge the best beer, cider or mead of the show, it had a clam and in depth discussion that went on close to one hour when the judgement had been made.
This was a truly amazing two days show casing the best Amateur brewers that Western Australia has to offer. As a Amateur brewer myself this was a huge educational experience and a lot of work is cut out for me to get to the standard of my fellow peers.
2014 WASABC Award Night will be held at
The Print Hall Bob's Bar, Brookfield Place, 125 St George's Terrace, Perth,
Wednesday 1 October- 6:30pm onward.
All 1st 2nd and 3rd placing in the
WASABC will earn them the right to enter the
AABC which will be held in Canberra 16th October 2014.
A big thank you should go to West Coast Brewers and the sponsors The Monk Brewery, Gage Roads Brewing Co, Print Hall Bob's Bar, Mangrove Jacks, Cryer Malt, T.W.O.C, Brew Mart, La Vigna, Malt House, Little Creatures and Artisan on making this Competition possible.