2024 National Homebrew Competition Winners

This article originally appeared in the January/February 2024 issue of Zymurgy Magazine

By Adriana Terron

The National Homebrew Competition (NHC) is the world’s largest stage for amateur homebrewers to display their skills, creativity, and passion for fermentation, and recognizes the most outstanding world-class homebrewed beer, mead, and cider.

This year’s 46^th Annual NHC saw several improvements and other changes. Supported by great feedback from las year, this was the second year of a return to first-round regional competitions, and judging sites in nine cities—Chicago, Denver, Indianapolis, Kansas City, New York, Philadelphia, Portland, Ore., San Diego, and Tampa—with final-round judging taking place in San Diego once again. Alongside beer, mead and cider competed as well, with both beverages’ award categories expanding—mead from five to 13 and cider from two to four.

Chris Williams, BA competition director, said, “I’m proud to say that we are extremely fortunate to have some amazing first-round organizers. Without them, the competition would look a whole lot different. They do a great job of running their respective competitions, which makes the overall NHC a huge success in the end. And I’d be remiss not to mention the folks in San Diego who helped run the final round. They have an incredibly efficient and professional team that works well together, so the competition went off without a hitch this year.”

This was the second year that judges used the 2021 BJCP Style Guidelines to provide feedback for all first-round entries. Final-rounders were given additional writeups.

This year’s competition received 3,593 entries from 1,179 AHA members across 47 states, Washington, D.C., and seven countries. In total, 166,303 entries have been evaluated since the inaugural AHA NHC in 1979 in Boulder, Colo.

The most-entered style categories were Pilsner (194 entries), Strong Belgian Ale (167 entries), and Pale European Beer (153 entries). Williams noted that this was noteworthy because “IPAs, as the largest category, were finally overtaken by German Pilsners, which was definitely a big change, especially with Strong Belgians jumping over IPAs as well.”

Atypically, the winners were announced at an awards ceremony that took place within the Great American Beer Festival (GABF) in Denver, Colo. on October 10. Homebrewers were showcased on the national stage of the country’s biggest beer festival, which the AHA helped start in 1982 as an add-on to the ANA National Conference. One hundred and fifty medals were awarded to entries across 50 categories, and nine major awards recognized outstanding contributions to homebrewing. Check out HomebrewersAssociation.org/national-homebrew-competition to see the winners list and watch the recorded ceremony, which Williams commented was “buzzing and energetic throughout as the one-and-only Julia Herz spiritedly announced the excited winners.”

Access the full article in the January/February 2025 Zymurgy magazine.

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