Scoring system

Quality Score (Q) + Value Score (V) + Package Score (P) = London Beer Competition Score.

A separate weighted score will be given for each of the three parts of the judging process (Quality gets twice the weight. The scores will be calculated with other judges for the same product on the team to give a final score from which individual prizes will be awarded.

Quality Score: will be marked out of 100

Value Score: will be marked out of 100

Package Score: will be marked out of 100

---

Categories

Gold: to receive a Gold medal, you need to score 90 or over.

Silver: to receive a Silver medal, you need to score between 76-89.

Bronze: to receive a Bronze medal, you need to score between 65-75.

---

Special Awards

The minimum qualification for the special award is 90 points. The category that has no product that achieved 90 points will not be considered.

Beer Of The Year

Brewery Of The Year

Best Beer By Country

Best Beer By Quality

Best Beer By Value

Best Beer By Packaging

Who are our judges?

The London Beer Competition will be assessed and judged by a leading panel of top-level beer buyers with current direct commercial buying responsibility, beer consultants, and experts who are also directly involved in the development of new beer brands or buying beer for commercial resale.

The list of judges will be drawn from leading retail chains, wholesalers, distributors, and on-trade groups across a variety of channels and disciplines including multiple retailing, convenience stores, cash and carries, specialist retailers, casual and fine dining, hospitality, and the travel industry.

Judging procedure

The beer will:

- Initially, be tasted blind to determine its quality.

- Where appropriate they will also be assessed by variety, style, region, and country.

- Judges will then be given a briefing document setting out the beer’s price and target consumer and trade channel where it wants to be sold. Only then will judges be asked to give their score for quality based on the initial blind tasting and then additional knowledge about the beer’s price and market position?  

- The judges will then be handed the bottle or format for them to be able to assess, in detail, the design, label, and packaging and determine how well that matches up to or complements the quality of the beer and its price point.

- The judges will then discuss the beer as a whole to help allocate scores in the three judging areas.

- The gold-winning beers and all special category beers will be re-tasted by the beer judges on the re-judging day to ensure the scoring quality.