#30 - Hendo from RQBA: How to judge beer

Aussie Beer Voyage

In March the Royal Queensland Beer Awards (RQBA) were held in Brisbane, where Adsy was a judge and Hendo was the Chairman of Judges! A fancy title to be sure, but what does it mean and what do beer competitions entail? Here we chat about how to judge beer and what goes into the process of the stewarding behind the scenes, judging process and all the other things you might not know.

We already know so much about Hendo, both as Adsy & Joel’s good mate, but also from our interview last year here. But this time we’re getting down to a beer competition, and how to judge beers and provide adequate feedback, improve knowledge and help grow the industry one beer at a time. For this competition, Hendo didn’t even get to judge beer per se, but was Chairman of Judges with Chris Sheehan (another industry legend), helping to oversee the judging of the competition, helping table captains and judges as they improved their skills.

Any professionally run beer judging competition is dependent on the integrity of the stewards and the judges. It’s a logistical nightmare, but also as Ari pointed out in our last interview, for the right person it’s rather fantastic. The stewards are responsible for categorising the beers and ensuring that the judges do not know the brand or any identifying things about the beer. The judges job is to match the beer against a set of words in a style guideline for which that beer was entered. Simple right? Wrong…

Thanks Hendo once again or sitting down with us to chat about more beer things. This episode is especially worthwhile for any brewery looking to enter competitions.

We love our amazing sponsors Bintani, Konvoy Kegs, Craft Punks Canning, Rallings Labels and CRAFTD. Glass once again, our thanks. As industry people supporting the little guys like us, it’s invaluable what they do for the industry, but also in support of us.

A special thanks also to both Amber Hour App for giving us use of their app, and Beers Illustrated for providing us with our awesome logos and continual support when we accidently delete them!

And it goes without saying, thanks to Hiker Brewing Concern for giving us excellent beer many times a week, and letting run amuck in their brewery more times per week than anywhere else.

And special thanks to you, our fans who may have watched or listened to this episode. Essentially, you’re the reason we’re doing this and it makes a world of difference. We could do it without you, but it wouldn’t be as fun and probably not as worthwhile.