Competition report

By Mark Bilbrough, Competition Secretary

Hey Brewers, i’m looking forward to the challenging job of running a productive competition program that will help cement Canberra Brewers as the Nations top club for the third year in a row. Hopefully you’ve had a chance to look through the program which was recently published on the forum, and you're getting together your entries for the first competition in late March.

As in previous years, the club competition schedule has covered pretty much all of the BJCP styles for you to present your brews for judging and feedback. As we get to the ACT Comp later in the year, we’ll switch over to the AABC styles to qualify for the Nationals (being held in Adelaide this year).

I think we are spoilt in Canberra with clean quality water, great bulk buys and deals with sponsors (so there is no excuse for poor ingredients), some fantastic palates, the Champion Brewer (x2) for the last five years and Champion Club for the last two.

If you haven’t ever entered a beer in competition – start now. I know personally that my brewing improved out of sight following on from the constructive feedback I got from the judges.

Outside of CompSec (or maybe why I put my hand up), i’m a mad keen brewer (my wife thinks I’m obsessed and my 2 year old daughter’s favourite word is ‘beer’) – I’ve been brewing on and off for the last 20 years, but have really been hooked since I joined Canberra Brewers in February 2008. Outside of brewing i’m an IT contractor in Defence.

If you have any thoughts, comments, feedback or criticisms of the competitions, please don’t hesitate to drop me a PM on the forum or send me an email – I’m keen to learn more as I grow into this role.

Cheers, Billy