Home brewers can now compete in the SIBA National Homebrew Beer Awards – a new annual competition and have the chance to see their beer professionally produced at an award-winning brewery.

Free to enter for SIBA Homebrewer members, the competition is open and will be judged by professional brewers at BeerX – the UK’s biggest beer and brewing trade event in March 2023.

SIBA has partnered with Yakima Chief Hops to provide Homebrewer members with the new experimental hop HBC 586 which has been described as “a large medley of fruit flavours…mango, guava, lychee, citrus with herbal notes”.

The challenge for entrants is to brew the best single-hop pale ale which showcases the full potential of the new hop variety.

Yakima Chief home brew manager Robbie Harrigan said: “Giving home brewers access to one of Yakima Chief’s latest experimental hop varieties gives them the opportunity to push the boundaries of hop-forward brewing while being directly involved with Yakima Chief’s Elite Trials programme. Professional brewers have only recently had access to this incredible new hop, and we can’t wait to see what home brewers create with it.”

The winner will have the opportunity to help scale-up their recipe for production at Quantock brewery. Director Cheryl Ford said: “We started as every home brewer did experimenting in our garage and now, we’ve had the chance to develop and expand our own independent brewery making beers enjoyed around the country.

“It’s great to see that SIBA has expanded to include home brewers who are the future of our industry and we can’t wait to invite the winner to join us here for a day of brewing.”

For more information visit: http://www.siba.co.uk/homebrewer/