In the early days of the pandemic, Beverage Trade Network had announced the judging date of the London Beer Competition to June 10, 2020. The final date to enter your beers was June 1, 2020.

With the pandemic still powering through, this has proven to be a tough time for breweries and beer brands, and finding a way back into the market is going to be even tougher. With consumer demands changing, buying slowing down a little, and other things happening, breweries and beer brands have taken a huge hit when it comes to sales and visibility.

However, the one positive thing is that people are still drinking, the only issue is that beerries and beer brands need to once again prove their credibility to the audience. As a brewery/brand, you need to show your audience that you’re still producing, you have the stock, and you’re doing it all safely. Right now, most people are worried about safety and sanitization more than anything else, and all they want to know is who is doing that?

For two consecutive years, the London Beer Competition has been successful in promoting and giving beers a platform to get in front of industry leaders and build their credibility. The 3rd edition of the London Beer Competition is set to do exactly, especially since the industry needs it more than ever as of now. Finding your way back into the market is hard, but with the London Beer Competition, you will not only be able to give your beer a boost, but you will also be able to see where your beer stands in the market.

Why London Beer Competition?

Beverage Trade Network, the organizers of the London Beer Competition asked over a hundred buyers across the globe about how they pick beers for their portfolios and lists. In the end, it all boiled down to three main aspects - Quality, Value, & Packaging.

The average customer always looks at the price first. Then they look at the label and pick out the beers with designs and stories that appeal to them. So, these two things come before a producer even gets a chance to show how well their product is.

Keeping this in mind, the London Beer Competition has successfully birthed a new judging process for beers, creating a judging process that differentiates from all other global beer competitions. 

For years, all global beer competitions have been organized the same way, by drinks being blind-tasted and judged on the basis of quality. Apart from quality, the London Beer Competition also judges all the beers on their packaging and value for money. To be more precise, the London Beer Competition judges in the way a consumer would, when picking a bottle.

Along with winners being awarded medals, the London Beer Competition also offers a wide range of marketing tools to help take winning brands forward, including year-round social media promotion by London Beer Competition and Beverage Trade Network. Not only that, but the results go to 50,000+ trade professionals around the world in the Beverage Trade Network community. LBC results will also get press awareness among media partners of the London Beer Competition and will be posted on BTN news and Bevroute News. To top it all off, the results also go to 20,000+ beer Buyers around the world.

Putting this into place, the London Beer Competition judges beers based on three main criteria:

Quality

We celebrate the beers that are both enjoyable and easy to drink, beers that are well-balanced where their acidity, tannins and alcohol levels all work seamlessly together.

Packaging

What a brand looks like is how every consumer chooses their beers. Up to 70% of consumers would choose a new drink just because it looks good. So, well-designed packaging is a must-to-consider factor.

Value

To be a good beer, it is not necessary to have a higher or cheaper price. What affects most is the value for money it holds.

In simpler words, medal-winning beers are those that:

• Offer the best value for the price

• Offer the best quality for their price

• Stand out of the shelf against the competitors

• Tell their story in the most relevant way

Judging Process

The judging panel of the London Beer Competition includes a wide range of industry experts, ranging from cicerones, to beer buyers, who have current direct commercial buying responsibility, along with drinks consultants and experts who are also directly involved in the development of new brands/buying drinks for commercial resale.

Beers entered in the London Beer Competition are judged by those industry experts who know exactly what the consumer wants, and what others will buy for the consumers - because in the end, if consumers don’t want your beer, then it’s not going to sell. The London Beer Competition will help breweries and brands find out if consumers actually want their beers or not, or if buyers are willing to buy them.

Check out judges for the 2020 London Beer Competition

The points scored when judging the three competitions are divided to ensure the right weighting is given to each of the three key criteria of quality, price and design. It is broken down as such.

Quality Score: marked out of 50

Value Score: marked out of 25

Packaging/Design Score: marked out of 25

For the medals:

• Gold: you need to score 90 or over.

• Silver: a score between 76-89.

• Bronze: a score between 65-75.

Along with the Gold, Silver, and Bronze medals, the London Beer Competition also offers seven other special category awards, namely:

• Best In Show By Country

• Beer Of The Year

• Brewery Of The Year

• Best Beer of The Year by Quality

• Best Beer of The Year by Value

• Best Beer of The Year by Package

Key Dates:

Key Dates:

Registration Closed:  1 June 2020

Judging Date: 10 June 2020

Winners Announced: 20 July 2020

Pricing:

£120 Regular Price: Till 1st June 2020 (Registration Closed)

Make the most of your entry

The London Beer Competition also offers a quantity discount benefit for the sake of breweries and beer brands.

4 to 9 entries: 10% discount

10 to 14 entries: 15% discount

15 or more entries: 20% discount