It’s with a very heavy heart we announce that 2025 will be the last Midwinter Homebrew Competition. When we started this endeavor back in 2011 we set out to create a competition that rewards quality beer, mead, and cider makers and had a reputation for quality judging. Delivering on that for 15 years has been a great pleasure and a very rewarding experience.
Times have changed though and the judge numbers, in terms of existing judges as well as those looking to become judges, has greatly diminished over the past few years. We find ourselves at a place where we used to do early judging sessions to get back into the groove, but now we need to do those sessions in order to get everything judged. Rather than lowering our entry number cap below 500, and becoming a shadow of what we once were, we’ve made the decision to go out with a strong finish.
- Entry registration for the 2025 competition will open on December 20th. People can set up their accounts now on the registration site but they must return on December 20th to register their entries.
- We will be using the same score sheet format that we used last year with a few enhancements. It is designed to provide the same type of feedback as the standard BJCP scoresheet but it does it in a more condensed format. It will also be captured on an electronic device so no messy handwriting issues. Please familiarize yourself with this change before submitting entries.
- Score Sheet Example DOWNLOAD
- The majority of judging is scheduled to take place on January 31st and February 1st, 2025. We will make every effort to conduct the judging as safely and efficiently as possible. No results will be made public until all judging has been completed, but we will be providing updates on the site as to the progress we’re making. Awards will be mailed out within a week of judging completion.
- The competition will be limited to 500 entries. Entrants will be limited to 6 total entries. This year we will be judging to the BJCP 2021 guidelines and we will make every effort to have all entries judged by at least 2 BJCP Beer, Mead, or Cider Judges, Professional Brewers, Professional Mead Makers, or Professional Cider Makers.
- We will be limiting the styles accepted this year. Please be sure to check the accepted styles page on the registration system site for accepted styles.
- We will again be requesting 3 bottles per an entry in 2025. Should only 2 bottles be supplied or survive shipping then that entry will not be judged at best of show should the entry make it to that level.
- The drop off locations have all been confirmed for 2025. North Pillar Brewing Co has kindly agreed to be our ship to location for this year. Please be sure to verify the deadline date and time for the drop off location you plan to use. There is a specific time and date listed for each site and most deadlines are at least a week before the January 17th registration and shipping deadline. We highly advise that any shipping be done to North Pillar Brewing Co as some of the drop off locations are not open all of the days of the week.
- Please, and we can’t emphasize this enough, allow for allow for adequate shipping time. This competition takes place during the winter months where shipping delays are more common than not. Please take this into consideration. Only a few of us run this competition, and we don’t have the bandwidth to repeatedly pick up entries and re-sort everything. We opened registration earlier this year so people had some extra time to package up their entries and get them shipped. If entries arrive late we’ll still get you a score sheet with feedback from judges, but they won’t be eligible for eligible for placing or winning prizes.
- We are very happy to report that we will still be a part of the Midwest Homebrewer of the Year circuit and the Master Homebrewer Program’s Circuit of America.
- We’d like to let everyone know up front that we will not be doing any kind of awards ceremony. Why? Those of you who have entered our competition in the past know that our primary focus is to provide entrants with good, quality feedback from at least 2 BJCP ranked judges or industry professionals. In order to do that we gotta treat them to some fun so they come back year after year. So when judging concludes, we shift over to post competition festivities mode. Results will be published Sunday February 4th and an email will be sent to participants when posted.
That’s it for now. We’ll post additional updates as things develop.
Prosit, Sláinte, Salute, Na Zdravi, Cheers! – Bruce Buerger
Coordinator – Midwinter Homebrew Competition