What does it take to win at beer competitions around the world? For the Bavarian State Brewery Weihenstephan, the world’s oldest brewery, it comes down to taste and quality. Brewmaster Tobias Zollo, recently shared insight on what the brewery does to prepare for competitions around the world.
A lot has to do with longevity and how the brewery has evolved over its 1,000 year lifespan. While today it might be known globally for its wheat beers, the brewery also produces a lot of lagers, and traditionally it was a dark lager brewery.
Properly treating water was difficult, so many of the breweries around Munich, Germany produced dark lagers. As processes and technologies improved, the brewery could begin making tradition lagers and then into wheat beers, says Zollo.
“It’s not so long that we’ve done wheat beers compared to our history,” he says, “maybe 80 years, but it’s funny that we are known more for wheat beers than for lagers.”
One of the main reasons the brewery’s wheat beer is so well known is because of the medals it’s racked up around the world.
Zollo says the brewery is always grateful and happy to win, and very much appreciates that people love the taste of the beers, because the brewers know how much effort goes into each batch.
When it comes to blind tasting, he points out that there is a lot of external marketing that goes on with the company that gets it global recognition, but he tells his brewers that any medals belong to them.
“I always say to my brewers, that’s your prize. It’s not the prize for marketing or sales, it’s your prize,” he says.
While some breweries might brew specific batches for competition, and then go through a selection process before entering, Zollo says Weihenstephan simply pulls beer from its stock and sends the freshest.
He considers brewing specific beers for competition “cheating.”
“We never do that, I cannot be happy about a prize, if I cheated on it. That’s not our approach,” he says. We always think every beer has to be the best beer that we can do. And hopefully every brewer stands up in the morning and says today I will brew the best beer. Not just for competitions or special occasions but because it’s the best beer.”
That is good advice for brewers around the globe. Medals are nice and constant recognition is a reminder of taste and quality that is continuously being achieved. It also helps foster a connection with consumers. As they see medal recognition on social media, packaging, and on a brewery website, they have the ability to taste the same beer that professional judges evaluated.
There are a number of respected competitions held around the country and the world. Brewers looking for honest feedback, and a chance to be better, are well served to send in fresh packaged beer that is destined for the general public.