World Beer Cup

Beer World Cup logo

The World Beer Cup is an international beer competition organized by the Brewers Association, a trade group representing America's small and independent craft brewers.^[1] It was founded by Association of Brewers president Charlie Papazian.

It is held every two years in conjunction with the Craft Brewers Conference & BrewExpo America. The majority of beers in the competition are from American brewers, and only beers that pay to enter are judged. In 2016 there were 6,596 beers from 1,907 breweries from 55 countries. Entries were judged by an international panel of 253 judges from 31 countries.^[2]

Award criteria and judging

The World Beer Cup recognizes brewing excellence in more than 90 categories but does not automatically award the top three entries in a particular category. When judges determine that a category contains three excellent examples of the style, they present gold, silver and bronze awards for the first, second and third place beers, respectively.^[3]

Judges may choose not to designate any awards in a category if all beers entered in that category are significantly out of style or have major defects. The competition manager will cancel judging in any one category if fewer than three entries are received.^[4]

Also, judges may grant an award in any one or more of the three award places without granting awards in all three places. For example, judges may recognize a beer as a silver or bronze award winner; yet not grant a gold award.^[5]

Eligibility and fees

All World Beer Cup entries must be commercially available, fermented malt beverages, conforming to the trade understanding of “beer”, brewed by a permitted commercial brewery. “Commercially available” means available for sale at retail at the time of registration.

For the 2016 World Beer Cup, the entry fee was $160 per beer, in addition to a $160 application fee.^[6]

Brewery awards

Beer awards