Champion Beer of Britain (CBoB) – how it works

The Champion Beer Of Britain (CBoB) competition is one of CAMRA’s flagship awards and is considered to be one of the most prestigious awards by the breweries in the United Kingdom that win it. 

There are eight CBoB areas, – these are London & South East, South West, East Anglia, East Midlands, West Midlands, North East & Yorkshire, Scotland & Northern Ireland and North West – these don’t mirror the 16 CAMRA regions, and some CBoB areas cover more than one CAMRA region.  

There are currently competitions covering 11 beer styles – milds, bitters, best bitters, golden ales, strong bitters, speciality beers, old ales/strong milds, stouts, porters and barley wines/strong old ales, and bottled varieties. CAMRA is currently reviewing its beer styles guide so these styles may change in future.

Nominations process

Every year in September CAMRA members  nominate their favourite beers, up to five in each style. Also at this stage, tasting panels from each CAMRA region have their chance to nominate beers they believe should go forward to the next stage. The results from members’ votes, and the tasting panel nominations  form a short list of the most recommended beers.

Ideally the next stage is for local judging. This is usually at CAMRA or pub based beer festivals, to give the opportunity to select an area winner. This can be a prestigious local award. These choices can then go forward to judging at The Great British Beer Festival (GBBF) and GBBF Winter (for the four winter beer styles – old ales/strong milds, stouts, porters and barley wines/strong old ales) and, hence, to find CAMRA’s Champion Beer of Britain (and Champion Winter Beer of Britain).

The Finals

At the GBBF the final CBoB category judging of the area winners takes place, with one winning beer from the Speciality Beer, Mild and Strong Bitter categories, coupled with two each from the Bitter, Golden Ale and Best Bitter categories proceeding into the final round in order to judge the Supreme Champion, which is crowned the best beer in Britain. The reason for two beers each from the Bitter, Golden Ale and Best Bitter categories is to accommodate for the proportionate share of the commercial beer market these beer styles command.

Four beers are fast tracked to the final round at GBBF; these are the winners of each category of the Champion Winter Beer of Britain (CWBoB) competition, held at the GBBF Winter festival in January-February each year. As these beers were judged to be the Champion Beers of their style earlier in the year, they are entered automatically into the final round of CBoB.

The CWBoB competition is similar in its structure to CBoB, as the final round of judging is made up of beers having reached this stage via the process of CAMRA members’ and tasting panels’ nominations, followed by area competition success. The categories in this competition are Old Ales/Strong Milds, Porters, Stouts and Barley Wines/Strong Old Ales.

There is a separate competition for the Champion Bottled Beer of Britain (which now includes cans too). Like CBoB the structure of the competition relies upon CAMRA members and tasting panel nominations, followed by the area competitions, with the final usually held at the BBC Good Food Show in November.

Eligibility

Beers are categorised according to their ABV, as it is now considered that this is more reflective of style and easier for most beer drinkers to understand.  To be eligible for CBOB, a cask conditioned bitter, best bitter, strong bitter or golden ale must be available for seven or more months of the year, and a cask conditioned mild or speciality beer must be available for three or more months of the year, or the cask beer must be one of the beer styles associated with the winter season. We also categorise according to their Original Gravity (OG). If we have two beers with the same abv then we turn to the OG.

Beers with misleadingly promoted geographical origin, brands with non-cask versions promoted using CAMRA awards, or beers which have sexist or otherwise discriminatory pump clips or other branding are excluded.

Graham Donning

Roll out the barrels


Beer festival organisers herald another successful festival

An extended version of the review from our April – June 2019 issue…..

There was a treat in store for visitors to the preview session of January’s Manchester Beer and Cider Festival when the UK’s only independent Master Cooper gave a demonstration of his craft.

Organisers invited Alastair Simms from Yorkshire Cooperage to complement one of the new attractions, the Beers from the Wood bar. Arranged with support from the Society for the Preservation of Beers from the Wood, both Alastair and the bar proved big hits with festival goers at Manchester Central’s great hall. The bar was so popular, it had been drunk dry three hours before Saturday’s closing time, as drinkers sampled both traditional and new beers put into oak and chestnut barrels.

Photo: James Darcey
Continue reading “Roll out the barrels”

Bar Buzz EXTRA – April 2019

Beer Expos at The Prairie Schooner

Urmston’s Prairie Schooner Taphouse let Beer Buzz know about a new series of events,

Although their main commitment will always be to local brewers, they are launching a series of regional beer showcases on the first weekend of every month.

Their first ‘Beer Expo’ at the start of April focussed on London brewers. This will be ,followed by Wales and the Peak District at the beginning and end of May respectively (latter forming part of a larger beer, cider and music festival)

Showcases dedicated to breweries from Newcastle, Bristol, Scotland and Leeds are also being planned.  

Dates for your diary:

  • Welsh Beer Expo is scheduled for the first weekend of May (brewers TBA)
  • Spring Cider & Music festival will kick off with a cider & cheese night on Weds, May 22nd. Local bands will be playing live music daily on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday (acts and cidermakers TBA)
  • Peak District Beer Expo will begin with a Thornbridge cask and keg tap takeover with street food on Weds, May 29th (other brewers TBA)
New craft beer bar & restaurant for King Street

As Beer Buzz Issue 2 went to press, news broke of a new venue set to open on King Street, Manchester.

The Mash Tun is due to open on April 19th in the site formerly occupied by Grafene Restaurant at 55 King Street.

The venue is being opened by Adam Regan who opened Stage and Radio bar beside Port Street Beer House in the Northern Quarter and Scott Martin who runs Fundamentum bakery on Piccadilly Place, working with Grafene’s former owners Paul & Kathryn Roden.

It promises a host of local ‘real ales’ and beers from local breweries including
CloudwaterRunaway and Beatnikz Republic and a range of their own ales. Advertising a total of 26 taps along a 12m long bar, it’s not clear if there will be any cask conditioned beers available.

The menu will include a mix and match selection of ten different sausages and ten different mashes, with choice of gravies. There will also be ligher lunch options and baked goods from Fundamentum’s bakery.

The venue will feature live music Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights with the bar due to be open until 3am. at weekends.

Talking Tech – The battle between good and bad carbon dioxide

An extended version of the article from Beer Buzz April – June 2019 issue.

In our last article we looked at the some of the containers that beer comes in. This time we are taking a look at something which divides many beer lovers – the role of carbon dioxide (CO2) in beer.

Let’s start by getting one thing out in the open – all beer should have carbon-dioxide dissolved in it. Whether it is a pint of Holt’s cask conditioned mild or Fosters made in Heineken’s factory in Moss Side, there is CO2 in your beer. There are many things that make the two drinks different – that one would be considered ‘flat’ and the other ‘fizzy’ is just one of them.

Carbonation, also referred to in brewing as ‘condition’, is measured in ‘volumes of CO2’. A volume is the space that the carbon-dioxide would take up at a standard atmospheric pressure at a temperature of 0° C. In other words, if a gallon of beer contained 2 volumes of CO2, the CO2 by itself would occupy the same space as two gallons.

A well-kept cask ale at cellar temperature should contain approximately 1.1 volumes of carbon-dioxide. A typical mass-market lager would be expected to contain 2.4 to 2.6 volumes of CO2 where a carbonated soft drink will typically have between 3 and 3.5 volumes. The reaction of the palate to the dissolved carbon-dioxide in your beer is part of the flavour profile – be it the gentle tingle on the tongue of good cask ale or the more pronounced ‘bite’ of a keg beer.

‘Nitro-keg’ beers (including the ubiquitous Guinness) are another category again – these tend to have low volumes of dissolved carbon-dioxide – in the 1.2 – 1.5 volumes region but also have nitrogen injected into them. The nitrogen has smaller bubbles which gives the characteristic ‘creamy’ appearance and mouthfeel. 

There are several ways carbon-dioxide gets dissolved in beer, but the most common is that it is generated naturally during the fermentation process. As yeast sets to work converting sugars in the wort to alcohol, the main biproduct is CO2.  

Many brewers will ferment in sealed tanks so that the naturally generated gas carbonates the beer while others ‘force carbonate’ either by applying CO2 at high pressure and low temperature or by forcing CO2 through the beer using a device known as a carbonation stone (for those of a certain age – think of a SodaStream in action).

A ‘Closed Conical Vessel (CCV)’ at Manchester Union Brewing Company

During cask conditioning, the carbon-dioxide generated during secondary fermentation in the cask is trapped in the sealed cask and absorbed into the beer. Contrary to what some believe, fermentation in a cask does not stop under pressure. There is a relationship between pressure and fermentation rate but at the pressures found in beer production, the effect is negligible and does not slow down secondary fermentation. 

Although commonly referred to as a process which takes place in the pub cellar, beer packaged with live yeast and sufficient fermentable sugars and held at suitable temperature will undergo secondary fermentation whether its in the brewery, in a warehouse or in the pub cellar. 

The levels of carbonation in a sealed cask can be significantly in excess of the expected final 1.1 volumes but the brewer must take care not to allow too much fermentation as the closures on a cask – the shive where a cask will be ‘vented’ and the keystone where the tap will be placed – will only hold back a relatively low pressure.

Cask beer which has been allowed to become too warm will frequently ‘blow’ one of its closures, increased temperature resulting in an increased rate of secondary fermentation and increased generation of carbon-dioxide.

The amount of carbon-dioxide which remains dissolved in a beer is determined by two factors – temperature and pressure. Physics determines the amount of CO2 which will remain soluble in a liquid at a given temperature – the lower the temperature, the more CO2 will remain dissolved.  

In a cask ale the CO2 produced during secondary fermentation stays dissolved in the beer until cask is ‘vented’ in the pub cellar – at which point any excess CO2 will then slowly escape to the atmosphere until it reaches the level which is soluble at cellar temperature. At 13⁰C this is 1.1 volumes and a vented cask beer needs time for the carbonation level to settle. Typically the time taken to vent off excess CO2 also allows other unwanted flavours in the beer to dissipate and desired flavours to develop. 

In a kegged beer higher carbonation levels are maintained by applying pressure to the liquid to keep the CO2 in solution (the skills of applying the right pressures in the cellar are for another day).

In many mass market lagers, carbonation is used to stimulate the tongue and mask the generally low flavour profile. However, for many modern brewers producing ‘craft’ beers for keg dispense, the intended carbonation is very much part of the design of a beer.

‘Craft’ brewers will design their keg beers to have anything from 1.2 to 3.0 volumes of CO2. A carbonation of 2.4 – 2.6 volumes would be typical but lower levels are often used for stouts and porters while highly hopped IPAs may use higher volumes to push out hop aromas from and prevent them tasting cloying.  Too high a carbonation for a given style and ‘carbonic bite’ can become overpowering and masks flavour.

It’s important to remember that all carbon-dioxide is the same gas – there is not ‘good’ and ‘bad’ CO2.  Whether it is generated during fermentation in a tank at the brewery, comes from a cylinder or is generated by secondary fermentation, it is all made up of one molecule of carbon and two of oxygen and once it is in your beer, you have no way of telling how it got there.

Whether you enjoy your beer gently or highly carbonated is a matter of taste.

Cask ale lovers enjoy the creaminess that comes with low carbonation while other drinkers find cask ales ‘flat’ and ‘dull’ and seek the lift from carbonation.  Different beer styles suit different levels of carbonation. There is no right and wrong.

Just enjoy the beer.