World Beer Awards holds innovative new online judging

The World Beer Awards has set a new standard with its innovative approach to its first round of beer-judging.

Ordinarily the tasting takes place every year in London, with all judges convening in person to taste and judge the entries over the course of one day. However, due to coronavirus restrictions, an alternative had to be developed to ensure the Awards could continue as normal.

The tasting saw over 72 judges, divided into 64 groups, using Zoom to carry out the judging, and the process was overseen by the chair of judges, journalist and British Guild of Beer Writers member, Adrian Tierney-Jones.

The judges who took part came together from countries all around the world including the USA, China, Taiwan, and several countries in Europe. All beer samples were packaged and sent to the judges individually labeled to ensure blind tasting; due to a few late arrivals in the midst of this extraordinary operation, there will be additional tasting sessions at the end of the month.

Awards director Anita Usjszaszi commented, ‘It took a lot of work to organise sending out the packages, and our judges were fantastic in the way they organised themselves with cooling the beers, getting them in the right order and tasting their way through them in the allotted time, all helped by their table captains. It’s definitely a new way of judging beer, which we might look at further for our competitions. A big thank you to all involved also on the operational front and the DHL delivery team for getting over 450 parcels to our judges’

Individual country winners will be announced in August prior to the finals, which will be held on a yet to be determined date, again remotely.

For further details contact Anita Ujszaszi at AnitaU@paragraph.co.uk.

20 July 2020 -