This year’s National Homebrew Competition Awards Ceremony was held on Saturday 6/19 at the National Homebrew Conference in Minneapolis Minnesota. Thanks to the Brewing Network, I was able to watch live on their video feed.
Ninkasi Award
In a previous post on this year’s NHC, I said that Gordon Strong was looking good for his 3rd Ninkasi Award. It is perhaps then no surprise that Gordon took the Ninkasi again this year. This is the first time anyone has taken the Ninkasi 3 times and he did so in 3 consecutive years. Congrats to Gordon!
What may be more interesting, especially to Bay Area folks, is that Stephen Nothcutt of DOZE tied with Gordon for the Ninkasi, based on 16 points each in the Final Round. To break the tie, the total number of First Round points were used. This year Gordon had 52 points from 14 First Round winners while Stephen had 24 points from 6 First Round winners.
One more point of interest is that Gordon scored only 4 of his 16 Final Round points with beer (he took Silver with his American Barleywine.) The other 12 points came from 3 mead entries in which he took a Gold, Silver and Bronze. (Stephan also took 6 points for a Gold in cider.)
That the outcome of one of the most prestigious awards in homebrewing was heavily influenced by mead (and cider) is a significant takeaway from this year’s competition. I would imagine most enthusiasts think of homebrewing only as it relates to beer. In fact, of the 28 BJCP Style Categories, 3 are for mead and 2 are for cider. This year’s comp saw 345 mead entries and 175 cider entries out of over 6200 total entries.
Homebrewer of the Year
The Homebrewer of the Year award is NHC’sr Best-of-Show and is the result of a final judging between all of the gold medal winners from each of the 28 BJCP categories.
This year, the Homebrewer of the Year went to Remi Bonnart of Fort Collins, CO for brewing a Flander’s Red. If you’re not familiar with Flander’s Red, it is perhaps one of the sourest of the sour beers. Those of you familiar with the current trends in craft beer shouldn’t be too surprised that a sour beer won top honors. With increased interest in Belgian beers, more folks will be brewing better Belgians.
Again of interest to us Bay Area folks, the 1st and 2nd runners up were both of DOZE. Scott Thomas was the 1st runner up with an English Barley Wine while Stephen Northcutt was 2nd runner up with his Eisbock.
Homebrew Club of the Year
One word: DOZE. Well, actually, that’s four words:Diablo Order of Zymiracle Enthusiasts.
Based on First Round points, they were 3rd going into the Final Round, so nice to see them take the win. Also included as points towards this honor are those scored from the 6 AHA Club Only Competitions.
Congrats to all at DOZE! Y’all made quite a showing this year.
Other Interesting Results
The top winners by number of medals. Only 5 folks won more than one medal.
- 4 for 16 pts – Gordon Strong of Saint Paul Homebrewers, MN
- 3 for 16 pts – Stephen Northcutt of DOZE. CA
- 3 for 14 pts – Norman Jufer of Inland Empire Brewers, CA
- 2 for 10 pts – Nathan Smith of DOZE. CA
- 2 for 6 pts – Michael Johnson of ZZ HOPS, UT
The top categories by number of entries. Interesting that Belgians accounted for 12.3% of all entries.
- 509 (8.1%) – American Ale
- 477 (7.6%) – Stout
- 410 (6.5%) – Belgian and French Ale
- 387 (6.2%) – India Pale Ale (IPA)
- 362 (5.8%) – Belgian Strong
Number of medals by state. All others had 3 or less.
- 10 – California
- 8 – Ohio
- 8- Texas
- 6 – Minnesota
- 4 – Indiana
Medal count by club. All others had 2 or less.
- 8 – Diablo Order of Zymiracle Enthusiasts (DOZE) of CA
- 8 – Saint Paul Homebrewers Club of MN
- 4 – The Brewing Network (various locations)
- 3 – Inland Empire Brewers of CA
You can see the complete list of results on the AHA website.
Congrats to all!
Brian, the Rabid Brewer
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I enjoyed the informative writeup and analysis of the NHC results. Congrats to all who medaled, and a special “cheers!” to DOZE as club of the year!
UPDATE
Apologies to Michael Johnson for missing his multiple medals and not listing him as a “Top Winner” in the original post.