Kevin DeLange has a warm place in his heart for the World Beer Cup. It’s where Dry Dock Brewing won its first award in 2006 and where the Aurora brewery has continued to excel, taking home seven more medals in seven different categories since then.
But he also likes the prestigious competition, which was founded in 1996, because it has traditionally taken place every other year, rather than annually, which “made it a little more special,” he said. “It’s more valuable when you only have half as many chances to win.”
That will change in May 2023 when the Boulder-based Brewers Association begins holding the WBC, which pits breweries all over the world against one another in 100-plus style categories, every year, just like its sister event, the Great American Beer Festival. One in the spring. One in the fall. It’s a shift that could shake up the dynamics of both events, according to local brewers.
“I think that there is a great possibility of a decline in competition entries for GABF in upcoming years,” said Paul Mahoney, co-owner and head brewery at Aurora’s Launch Pad Brewery, which has won multiple medals in both festivals in the past few years. “The World Beer Cup has always had a more prestigious environment surrounding it and, now that it is every year, I think it will become more of a focus for breweries chasing hardware.”
Entering both can get expensive, he added. “With the consistent increase in raw and packaging materials for small craft breweries, coughing up $160-$180 per entry gets tough twice a year.”
“It’s not something I’m looking forward to,” said Brian Hutchinson, co-founder and brewer at Cannonball Creek Brewing in Golden. “I don’t want to think about things in terms of competitions all the time. It adds some pressure and disrupts our flow.”
Cannonball has pulled down a stunning 14 medals at the GABF in the 10 years since it opened, as well as three at the World Beer Cup, and Hutchinson said his focus will likely remain on GABF. “It’s cool to compete with foreign breweries at WBC to see how your beers stack up but, in my brain, GABF is the harder competition, so I’m more geared toward that.”
In fact, Cannonball may continue to enter beers at the WBC only every other year rather than every year because of the amount of work it takes to brew competition beers, bottle them specifically for the fests and then enter them, Hutchinson added.
The Boulder-based Brewers Association decided to make the change primarily due to demand from breweries, said organization spokesperson Ann Obenchain. “The competition has grown by an estimated 10% every competition cycle, making it an extremely competitive event. The year 2022 was the most competitive to date, with 10,542 entries from 2,493 breweries in 57 countries.”
GABF, which takes place at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver this week, Oct. 6-8, had about the same number of entries in 2022.
For now, it’s “difficult to forecast the long-term outlook of the decision,” she added. “We’ll have a better idea [in 2023] if interest remains strong for both competitions. We anticipate that it will.”
But Dry Dock’s DeLange said he wouldn’t be surprised if entry numbers for GABF decline next year. “It’s a lot of work because once one is over, the next begins, so it’s a never-ending process. But it’s a good revenue stream for the BA, especially after COVID when it took a big financial hit. … The organization is just so important, so it makes it easier to swallow the cost.”
“For us, we won’t change. We will enter just as many beers,” he added. “It’s just so important to our people, our brewers, our folks in the lab and the taproom.”
