On May 26th, 2023, the eight edition of the Barcelona Beer Challenge awards ceremony was held. After many years, the competition joined again forces with the third edition of the InnBrew and all framed in the eleventh edition of the Barcelona Beer Festival.
At 6pm, the breweries from all over the world were anxiously waiting for Judit Càrtex and Mikel Rius, who are already a classic in the presentation of the Awards. Everything was ready to start handing out the 180 medals in the 64 categories with the participation of 1.126 beers from 181 breweries from 17 countries
The first block began with the awarding of 20 categories, and ended with a novelty: the AMATEUR Awards, which celebrated its first edition and would like to encourage the homebrewer to create and be part in a competition of international level. Congratulations to the winners: Gold medal for Luis Alberto Galvez Piquer, Silver medal for Lluc Cordonet Donat and Bronze medal for Francesc Delgado.
The second block started with very good energy, 16 categories were awarded and it finished with one of the BIG awards: THE MOLINA FOR BREWERS INNOVATION AWARD. The finalists of the 4th edition: Cervecera Península, Orient Street Brewery, Graham Pearce Menorca, Dúa Sparkling Beer and the winner from Perú, 7 VIDAS and its project SHIHUAHUACO DREAMS, a research of different Amazonian woods to age beer. Congratulations to all of them!
The penultimate block began, where another 16 medals were awarded and the blog ended with the delivery of the most emotional award of the ceremony; STEVE HUXLEY CAREER AWARD, In this 5th edition, Salva Marimón passed the baton to one of the 5 finalists: Manuel Baltasar BIERCAB, Susana Giner 2D2Dspuma, Boris de Fondes BORIS BREW Montse Virgili ALES AGULLONES and the winner Guillem Laporta of HOMO SIBARIS. Congratulations Guillem!
Next to last block, started with excitement because the winners were beginning to be glimpsed. After handing out the 12 remaining medals, the 2 Big Awards began: first, to the best ROOKIE BREWER with a NICE NEW, thanks to SCRIBEER, the trophies were more sustainable and original than ever: they were made of bagasse (the leftover cereal once used to brew). The award went to DÚA SPARKLING BEER, a brewery with Asturian spirit that started in 2022 and born from the hand of Blanca Fresno. Hurray!
To finish the ceremony, it was shown the ranking of the finalists breweries to end with the BIG AWARD to the BEST BREWERY: The winner was Cosa Nostra from Port de Sagunt in Valencia. Congratulations Vicent!
You can find the list of winners by following this link and watch the gala on our YouTube channel.