A total of 269 beer samples from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Cyprus took part in the first year of the Czech Beer Star tasting competition, organised for the first time by Mendel University and the Beer Academy in the premises of the university’s Faculty of Agronomy. Ten three-member expert panels were responsible for evaluating the samples. The evaluation system was inspired by wine competitions.
Beer tasting competitions in the Czech Republic usually end with the announcement of the first three places in various categories, such as ales, IPAs, 10° lagers, 11° lagers, and so on. The organisers of the Czech Beer Star took a different approach to the evaluation of the competing beers.
“Our system is similar to the one we know from wine competitions,” explained David Janda, the competition organiser at the Beer Academy. “Samples are given a score on a 100-point scale, and depending on the number of points they receive, they are awarded gold or silver medals.”
Different aspects of the drink are judged, including flavour, tang, head, appearance, aroma and overall impression. Due to the more complex judging system, the winners will not be announced until 4 March.
The samples competed in 27 categories, one of which was for university breweries. The University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice and Mendel University entered their beers in this category.
“We entered two samples in the lager and IPA categories,” said Tomáš Gregor, brewer at the JOHANN University Brewery. “Our lager is more difficult to produce than IPA because it is brewed using a double mashing process. Part of the mash is taken twice and boiled separately, so it takes more time and energy to make. However, the wort is more aromatic and colourful thanks to this process. It is a typical way of making Czech lager.”
The competition also had an ecological dimension. Participating breweries were only allowed to send one litre of beer from each sample, which is much less than other competitions, and prevented a lot of waste. Unused samples are then sent to the distillery in Pouzdřany. “There we will remove the alcohol from the samples by distillation and create so-called distillery stills. These will then be used to feed the bulls,” added Gregor.
