Meet the Stella Artois Draught Masters

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From across the globe they have come. From Montenegro…from Hong Kong…from Paraguay, and 23 other countries, including the UK. Some are...

From across the globe they have come. From Montenegro…from Hong Kong…from Paraguay, and 23 other countries, including the UK.

Some are brandishing beer glasses in a fandago style. Others are concentrating hard on pouring a head of three centimetres on their beer. Still more are taking a knife to the top of their chalice glasses, straightening off the foaming head.

Meet the Stella Artois Draught Masters, the bartenders who have been assembled in New York in a contest to find the best bar person on the planet.

Or rather for best bar person, read the bartender who succeeds in the 'continual quest for perfection' in pouring the ultimate glass of Stella Artois. It's the competition where pouring beer is a science which you can very easily get wrong

OK. So you or I might think that there is not such a mystery to pouring what is basically a half pint of lager.

Oh but there is. Think passion. Think care. Think craftsmanship. The words pepper the presentation at the New York Library, where the event, with an audience of more than 300 and many more watching live streaming on Facebook, is being held.

But don't take my word for it. Just listen to Jorn Sorquet, the global brand director for Stella Artois, and one of the driving forces behind the contest, which this year celebrates its 13th year - although its first outside of the brand's hometown of Leuven in Belgium.

"This competition is about getting the best bartenders in the world to declare their passion for Stella Artois in two ways," he tells me.

"First of all they have to declare their passion for the beer both as a consumer and as a bartender; and secondly to show off their skills as bartenders - which means respecting the Stella Artois nine-step pour."

Sorquet is the man whose job it is to ensure that the customer walking into a pub in Macclesfield and asking for a pint of Stella has exactly the same experience as the man walking into a bar in Montenegro.

The Draught Master competition is one way in which brand owner AB InBev seeks to achieve that.

"I try to find synergies worldwide and to engage with local counterparts," says the Belgian.

"If you want to build a global brand you have to ensure that it is similar wherever you go. Put it into context with other global brands - Citibank for example, where you can walk into branches all over the world, but you always get the same look and feel - and you start to understand it a bit more."

Integral to Stella

Scary stuff. But from the point of view of AB InBev, the global megalith of brewing formed last year from the merger of Budweiser brewer Anheuser Busch and InBev, you can see why the positioning makes increasing sense. It's also one of the reasons why the famed nine-point pour is now so integral to Stella, as it seeks to entrench its position as a global brand - albeit one with sometimes very different images in the different countries it serves.

The pour was at the heart of the competitions in individual countries which saw finalists plucked out for the New York contest.

In the UK Will Maltby, of the Princess Victoria in Shepherds Bush, West London won the competition in October and was representing the country here at the global final. There's also a UK wild card entrant, Danny Fernandez, a pub customer who won a place in the final via the competition on Facebook.

A crack team of judges, including last year's winner Tommy Goukens from Belgium and US food and drink journalists, have been assembled to assess the entrants, one allotted to each as they take to the stage in groups of three or four.

There's a lot of US-style whooping and a-hollering as the evening unfolds.

Oh OK, I admit it, a lot of it was from me. I got a bit carried away as our UK representatives took to the stage. But sadly neither comes close to making it through, with both dumped out at the semi-final stage - putting paid to suggestions that the winner would obviously come from one of Stella's key markets. Maltby's beer was judged to be foaming a little too much, while Fernandez confused himself with the order of the nine-steps - although he performed very creditably for a man who had just 20 minutes practice.

Fernandez tells me: "I came third in my group - but I'm not a bartender as I'm a wild card winner! I'm sure there is a science to it but the other contestants weren't willing to share it with me."

The perfection and attention to detail on show across the evening almost beggars belief. The bartending heroes who rise to the top are those who manage to follow the nine steps to the letter.

Winner takes all

Finally after a process that lasts almost five hours, three rounds of competition that stretched to a 'passion test' of knowledge about the beer, and voting on 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire'-style keypads from the audience, Avril Maxwell from Belgium Beer Cafe Torenhof in Christchurch, New Zealand is announced as the winner. Second and third place go to Joe Oppedisano of Canada and Alexey Shtukarev of Russia.

It's quite a prize that Maxwell receives in the name of the beer.

She now begins a global journey to more than 20 different countries across the globe as an ambassador for Stella Artois, in which she will be looking to ensure that every 'chalice' glass of the beer is poured perfectly the world over. No small task then. As Sorquet says, "it's the job of a lifetime".

So what can UK pubs learn from the competition?

To be frank it's unlikely that many bartenders in busy pubs and bars will have the time for the full nine-point pour. Sorquet admits this may be the case - and advises the following: "One of the most important things is our chalice glass. What's most important for consumers is that at the end of the day they get a perfectly presented Stella Artois so there should be a head of three centimetres high and it needs to be perfectly chilled at about 3 to 5 DEGREES centigrade."

Whether every pub customer in the UK would be happy with a three centimetre head on their Stella is matter for some debate.

But another lesson for UK pubs may simply be that lager can be a lot more exciting when you put on a show with it - just have Stella Artois has done with the World Draught Master competition.

Stella's nine-point pour

Central to the Draught Masters competition, and to the Stella Artois global position, is the 'Nine-Step Pouring Ritual':

1. The Purification - Glass to be thoroughly rinsed and cleaned before serving

2. The Sacrifice - The first burst of foam from the tap is thrown away

3. The Liquid Alchemy Begins - Glass to be held at 45 DEGREES

4. The Head - The head is naturally created by straightening and lowering the glass

5. The Removal - The tap is closed in one quick action and the glass moved

6. The Beheading - As the head foams over the chalice, the barman should gently cut it off.

7. The Judgement - Time to take a look at the head. Perfection is three centimetres, according to Stella Artois

8. The Cleansing - The barman rinses the bottom and sides of the glass

9. The Bestowal - The glass is served up on a coaster, with a drip catcher at the base.

Countries represented at the Stella Artois World Draught Master final