Waitrose unveils 2014 Home Brew Challenge

Homebrewers take note! On 29 May 2014, the UK supermarket group Waitrose announced that it has teamed up with craft brewery Thornbridge and home brew supplier Brew UK to find the UK’s best home brew.

In 2011 Thornbridge launched the first Home Brew Challenge.

The winner of this year’s competition will see its beer appear in 60 Waitrose supermarkets from October 2014.

All beer entries need to be submitted by 31 July 2014 to the Thornbridge Riverside Brewery in Bakewell. If a beer is chosen by Waitrose for national distribution, the winning brewer will be asked to give their recipe to Thornbridge. The winning brewer will be invited to Thornbridge for the inaugural brew.

Rob Lovatt, Head Brewer at Thornbridge, said: “The Home Brew Challenge 2014 will be a celebration of the British tradition of brewing with the aim of creating a great new beer and for people to try and embrace many of the new flavours in beers from across the world.

He added: “A considerable number of home brewers develop great quality beers that can never be appreciated by a larger drinking public. The Home Brew Challenge 2014 will provide home brewers with an opportunity to match their beers against those of other enthusiasts, and have them tasted by a panel of expert beer judges.”

Waitrose beer buyer Kate Prall said: “This is a hugely exciting project for us, and it comes at a very important time in the history of craft breweries. The resurgence in popularity of both craft breweries and people trying out their own homemade beers means that we’re bound to get some amazing entries to our competition, which we’re looking forward to tasting.”

No one seems to know how many homebrewers there are in the UK. Several tens of thousands, some say. At least, Waitrose’s competition will show how proficient some of them are.