Competition in Stavanger 2024
The judges from each country brought the final beers in their flight luggage, which were delivered on Friday evening and kept cold overnight.
The final was held in a meeting room at Forus Expo on Saturday during RØL. The judges arrived at 10 am. The final was conducted by sorting the beers from supposedly mildest to most flavorful, and they were judged in silence by one beer judge from each country.
Rogaland (RØL) is Norway’s largest homebrewing event.
More than 100 different beers to taste. Brewers from all over Norway came to Stavanger to show off what they have to offer. Whether you like light or dark, sweet or sour, weak or strong – at Rogaland Beer Festival you could find beer for every taste.
There was also a competition where the audience voted for their favorite among the beers served at the event.
Type definitions were translated into English in advance and printed out. The judges were told to find the 4 best beers based on type accuracy. The judges took notes along the way, some using their judging forms, others not. After each beer, there was a little discussion, and some beers were removed from the final during the tasting. The next beer was served when the judges signaled that they were ready for the next beer.
After all the judges had tasted all the beers, the beers were ranked according to the following method on a board:
Pre-ranking of all beers, counting of votes
• How many judges have beer no. X on their top list?
• Beers that have no votes are removed from the list
Sorting
• Beers with the most votes are tasted against those with the second most votes.
• In the event of an equal number of votes, the beers are tasted against each other and sorted.
Last check
• Gold Final: Beer estimated as number 1 is tasted against beer estimated as number 2 and ranked
• Bronze Final: Beer estimated as number 3 is tasted against beer estimated as number 4.
• The winner of the Bronze Final is then tasted against the loser in the Gold Final (If this one is better again, it can be tasted against the winner of the Gold Final, but it is unlikely).
The feedback from the judges was that this was both a fair and quick method of judging the beers. No one had this year’s winner in first place, but everyone agreed that it was the right winner.
The 2024 judges. From left to right: Morten Bressendorf Schmidt (DK) Tollef Fog Heen (NO), Mikael Jansson (SE), Guðmundur Mar Magnússon (IS) og Andre Brunnsberg (FI)
The results were announced during the awards ceremony at RØL. The winner received an invitation from Mikkeller to brew their beer at Warpigs in Copenhagen. However, there have been some problems with customs declaration of Stjørdalsmalt into the EU (lab measurement of phenol levels, etc etc), we hope that it will be sorted out.
The top 3 then received their diplomas in the mail when it was finally ready from the printer in October.
The 2024 winners. From left to right: Andreas Rosén og Bjørn Lodve Wikstrøm (NO/1), Sampo Järvi (FI/2) og Hans Christian Nilsen (NO/3)