In a glass of their own

Every two years, international brewers congregate for the world's biggest and best beer competition. Phil Mellows reports from this year's event

There are occasions when nothing delights the nose so much as that distinct whiff of a yeast infection.

Such an occasion is the judging of the world's biggest beer competition, the Brewing Industry International Awards, which took place a couple of weeks back at a cellar-temperature Burton-on-Trent Town Hall.

Every two years, brewers from all over the globe converge on the capital of British brewing to sort the wort from the grist among the hundreds of beers entered.

Over the course of three days they each have to taste up to 40 beers at a session. Bad brews immediately betray themselves and can be discarded from the reckoning straight away. An infected yeast is an easy one to spot and it lightens the burden.

For 2002, the awards' main sponsor is J D Wetherspoon. The pubco has in the past featured winning brews among its guest beers and this year will see the competition medallists featured in the chain's pubs, raising the profile of the century-old awards among drinkers to a higher level than ever before.

This time around there were no fewer than 683 beers to be sniffed and sipped by a team of 26 men and one woman, among them ScotCo's Bill Mathers, Coors' Andy Hume, Adnams' Mike Powell-Evans, St Austell's Roger Ryman, Caledonian's Russell Sharp, George Gale's Derek Lowe, Ann Street's Paul Hurley, Lees' Giles Dennis, Hook Norton's David Clarke, Highgate's Neil Bain and Timothy Taylor's Peter Eells.

The latter, a past medal-winner himself on several occasions, was swaggering around in a black stetson. A seasoned judge, he explained it was merely to keep his head warm. A sensible precaution in a necessarily chilly environment.

Burton Town Hall was divided into three tasting rooms. The main hall housed the keg beers and at the back, hidden behind a screen to ensure anonymity, the kegs were snared in a hamster's nest of beer lines - 1.2 kilometres worth - that connected them to remote coolers and taps fitted to long trestle tables.

The next largest room was home to the cask ales, dressed in colour-coded cooling jackets according to category, and bottled and canned beers, sinisterly black-taped to prevent their identification, were found in the third.

This year, small-pack entries were down, with some suspicion falling on the activities of an upstart rival contest, Chicago's World Beer Cup.

But keg beers, surprisingly, were up, as were dark ales - a mix of milds, porters and stouts. Most encouragingly for British brewing, entries from small brewers hit a record 110.

The judges roved in packs of three or four between the three rooms, their strict schedule somehow contrived to make sure they avoided any beers they had brewed themselves.

Eventually, they would narrow the choice down to three beers in each of the 23 classes. Each of these receive a medal. A public announcement of where the golds, silvers and bronzes fall must wait until a special ceremony at London's Guildhall on April 16.

The Brewing Industry International Awards judges beer on a strictly commercial basis. In other words, entries must conform to the style category in which they are entered and they must, in the judges opinion, be saleable to the general consumer.

This is somewhat different to what goes on in, say, the Campaign for Real Ale's Champion Beer of Britain contest, held at Olympia in London. The judging here comes down more to the taste of the connoisseur. For instance, while an exceptionally well-hopped brew might get the the thumbs-up at Olympia, the same beer may get turned away at Burton for being too well-hopped. Balance is the key quality here.

So what you get in the shortlist is a mixture of both beers that the enthusiast can celebrate and beers that, on another occasion, might be dismissed as bland. In other words, mainstream lagers have as much chance of winning a medal as speciality porters.

So what happened? American brewers came out on top, picking up a quarter of all nominations, but Brits fared pretty well - especially the microbrewery contingent. Regional brewers, too, put up their usual good showing.

Orkney Brewery, run by former publican Roger White has three brands in the final: Northern Light in the international packaged ale category, Dragonhead Stout among the dark beers and mid-gravity cask ale Red MacGregor.

London brewer Young's has three cask ales nominated - Special, Double Chocolate Stout and Triple A - while Kent's Shepherd Neame picked up three nominations for lagers brewed under licence - Oranjeboom, Kingfisher and Hurlimann.

Sussex brewer Harvey's scored among the stronger beers with its Imperial Extra Double Stout, Porter and Tom Paine.

Brits in the shortlist​

• Packaged:​ Orkney Northern Light, Robert Cain's Best Bitter, Young's Special and Double Chocolate Stout, Cameron's Scorpion Super Lager, McEwan's Scotch Ale, Robinson's Old Tom, Harvey's Imperial Extra Double Stout.
• Dark beers:​ Murphy's Stout, Holt's Mild, Orkney Dragonhead Stout, Harvey's Porter, York's Centurion's Ghost, Wychwood Black Wych.
• Lagers:​ Carling (Coors), Kronenbourg (ScotCo), Oranjeboom, Kingfisher, Hurlimann (all Shepherd Neame).
• Keg ales:​ Worthington (Coors), Flowers IPA (Interbrew), Tennent's Velvet (Interbrew), Guernsey Special Bitter, Jersey Special Bitter.
• Cask ales:​ Deuchars IPA (Caledonian), Hook Norton Best Bitter, Oak Brewing Navvy, Orkney Red MacGregor, Brain's SA, Young's Triple A, Harvey's Tom Paine, Oak Wobbly Bob, Ridley's Old Bob.