Category Archives: Brew Slam

Brew Slam 2020 Cancelled Due to COVID-19

Brew Slam, News

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, GTA Brews has decided to cancel this year’s iteration of our annual Brew Slam homebrew competition.

As soon as we went into lockdown back in the spring, we started getting questions from homebrewers across Canada asking us what our plans were for Brew Slam 2020. We held off making any firm decision as long as we could, with the hope that the situation would improve and we could continue as planned.

After months of waiting and internal discussion, the club has decided not to proceed with a competition this year. We are aware of the virtual homebrew competition trend that some clubs in the US have been championing, but we didn’t feel this would be appropriate for Brew Slam. We also considered a smaller virtual only competition, but didn’t feel this was something we wanted to pursue at this time.

We are looking forward to coming back with Brew Slam 2021, and can’t wait to make it better than ever before. For now, we are sending out best wishes to all Canadian homebrewers and their families, and hope you are honing your recipes with plenty of homebrewing. The competition is sure to be fiercer than ever in 2021 when we, and the rest of the BOTY circuit, return!

Cheers from the Brew Slam Crew!

Brew Slam 2019 – Wrap Up

Brew Slam, Competitions, Wrap Up

Brew Slam is wrapped up for another year, and what a year it was! All prizes were shipped out to our winners before the holidays, and I finally have time to write my annual wrap up post. With 819 entries judged, we were Canada’s largest homebrew competition again in 2019!

Saturday Afternoon: 49 BJCP judges seated in ONE session!

Competition Stats 2019:

  • Largest Canadian homebrew competition of the year!
    • 819 entries judged
    • 850 paid entries
    • 880 registered entries
    • 9/10 provinces, NY
      • Missing PEI still!
  • 281 participants with entries
    • A new record!
  • 134 volunteers: 77 judges, 52 stewards, 24 sorters, 14 crew
    • Most BJCP judges in any Canadian beer competition, ever!
  • 32 award categories
  • 7 judging sessions, avg 6.7 entries/pair per session
  • Over $23,800 in sponsored prizes and volunteer perks
Continue reading Brew Slam 2019 – Wrap Up →

Brew Slam 2019 – Award Ceremony Photos

Brew Slam

As promised here are the medal winner photos we took at this year’s Brew Slam Awards Party! A full wrap up post is still in the pipeline, but hopefully these will stave off those that are getting antsy!

Big thanks to David Chang-Sang for taking these photos of our winners as they are awarded their medals!

  • Welcome to Junction Craft Brewing Co
  • Medals Waiting to Be Awarded
  • TBOY Trophy
  • Prize Table
  • Big Prizes
  • Party Filling In!
  • Party Filling In!
  • Draft Table
  • Brew Slam Crew
  • MC Zack Weinberg of Toronto Brewing
  • Competition Organizer Eric Cousineau
  • 1 – Light Lager
  • 2 – Pale European Lager
  • 3 – Pilsner
  • 4 – Amber Lager
  • 5 – Dark Lager
  • 6 – Bock
  • 7 – English Pale Ale
  • 8 – Scottish & Irish Ale
  • 9 – American Pale Alee
  • 10 – Other Pale American Ale
  • 11 – Amber & Brown American Ale
  • 12 – English Brown Ale
  • 13 – Porter
  • 14 – Stout
  • 15 – Strong Stout
  • 15 – Strong Stout (Iron Rings Brewing Co)
  • 16 – Standard IPA
  • 17 – Other IPA
  • 18 – German Wheat & Rye Beer
  • 20 – Belgian Strong Ale
  • 21 – Strong Ale
  • 22 – Brett Beer
  • 23 – Sour Beer
  • 25 – Fruit Beer
  • 27 – Smoke-Flavoured & Wood-Aged Beer
  • 28 – Specialty Beer
  • 30 – Specialty Mead
  • 31 – Traditional Cider
  • 32 – Specialty Cider
  • Best of Show
  • TBOY (Toronto Brewer of the Year) Trophy
  • TBOY Winners
  • Jon Mains Award Winners
  • Henderson Cup Winner – Chris Hughes
  • Winners Photo

Brew Slam 2019 – Results Are Posted on torontobrewing.ca

Brew Slam, Competitions

(Dec 4th, 2019) Edit: They are are also now available on gtabrews.ca

The Award Ceremony has concluded for 2019, and the results have been announced! If you weren’t able to attend, your medal(s)/prizes will be shipped. If you are a local that couldn’t attend, please arrange to pick up your prizes directly from us.

Results

Click Here to view the Brew Slam 2019 Results

Scoresheets

Scoresheets have been uploaded to the entry software, all you need to do is login, go to your Account page, and look for the “gavel” icon next to each entry. You might also notice a miniBOS checkmark next to your entry, this means it was in contention for a medal. This will allow you to download the scoresheets for that entry. Direct link to profile
Gavel Icon: 

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Scoresheets From John Palmer

This year our special guest for the judging weekend was John Palmer, and our volunteers had a blast hanging out with him all weekend. A lucky 34 entrants will notice a 3rd scoresheet in their PDF file, completed by Palmer himself while our judge pairs took turns judging a beer with the king of homebrewing.

I will follow up with a more complete wrap up post, but for now, congrats to all the winners!

Cheers,
Eric Cousineau
Organizer, Brew Slam 2019

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Brew Slam 2019 – Entry Registration is 7 Days Away!

BJCP, Brew Slam, Competitions

Visit this page for the full details: gtabrews.ca/brew-slam/

[BREW SLAM 2019 – Toronto, ON]

Entry Registration Opens: Sept 25th, 2019
Entry Deadline: Nov 2nd, 2019
Judging Dates: Nov 8th – 10th, 2019

Entry Limits:

  • Total cap of 850 PAID entries
  • Per-entrant caps: 2 pp for Sept 25 – Oct 2, then up to 6 pp starting Oct 3

ENTRY REGISTRATION FOR BREW SLAM 2019 (#BREWSLAM) IS 7 DAYS AWAY, SO IT’S TIME TO SHIFT GEARS AND GET READY!

GTA Brews is excited is excited to build on last year’s massive success which saw 826 entries, from 191 entrants, in 8/10 provinces, judged by 75 judges, over just 3 days, making this the largest homebrew competition in Canada! We are ecstatic to have John Palmer attending as our guest of honour (Nov 8-10) to help ring in our 5th year!

This is a BJCP sanctioned competition, and also part of the Canadian Brewer of the Year (BOTY) circuit. The judging will take place at Amsterdam Brewery (Leaside) from Nov 8th to 10th. Judging will be performed by BJCP ranked judges and pro brewers, using the BJCP 2015 Guidelines and Provisional Styles.

OUR COMPETITION RULES HAVE BEEN UPDATED TO ALLOW MORE PEOPLE TO ENTER

This year we have implemented a few changes to the structure of the competition in order to encourage more entrants:

  • The total cap has been moved to PAID entries, rather than registered entries
  • The per-entrant cap is staggered to allow prospective entrants a full week opportunity to register at the lower cap

Announcing Brew Slam 2019 – Homebrew Competition

BJCP, Brew Slam, Competitions, News, , , ,
Click Here to go to the main competition page.

Press Release

August 26th, 2019 – Toronto, ON

Inquiries about Brew Slam 2019 should be sent to: comp@gtabrews.ca

GTA Brews is excited to announce our fifth annual, nation-wide, homebrew competition for beer, mead, and cider; Brew Slam 2019 (#BrewSlam)! We are excited to build on last year’s massive success which saw 826 entries, from 191 entrants, in 8/10 provinces, judged by 75 judges, over just 3 days, making this the largest homebrew competition in Canada! We are ecstatic to have John Palmer attending as our guest of honour (Nov 8-10) to help ring in our 5th year!

This is a BJCP sanctioned competition, and also part of the Canadian Brewer of the Year (BOTY) circuit. The judging will take place at Amsterdam Brewery (Leaside) from Nov 8th to 10th. Judging will be performed by BJCP ranked judges and pro brewers, using the BJCP 2015 Guidelines and Provisional Styles.

Continue reading Announcing Brew Slam 2019 – Homebrew Competition →

Brew Slam 2018 – Wrap Up

Brew Slam, Competitions, Wrap Up

Brew Slam is wrapped up for another year, and what a year it was! Most prizes were shipped out to our winners before the holidays, and I finally have time to write my annual wrap up post. With 826 entries judged, were were Canada’s largest homebrew competition again for 2018!

The judging and awards for Brew Slam happened back in November, but we’ve been hard at work since then working on all the wrap up tasks to be able to mark the competition complete for another year. Don’t stop reading now because some pretty amazing things happened this year that I want to share.

  • Full house at the Saturday afternoon judging session

Competition Stats 2018:

  • Largest Canadian homebrew competition, ever!
    • 826 entries judged
    • 847 registered entries
    • 8/10 provinces, Yukon, CT/PA, and ISRAEL!
  • 191 participants with entries
  • 135 volunteers: 75 judges, 54 stewards, 22 sorters, 10 crew
    • Likely the most judges in any Canadian beer competition, ever!
  • 31 award categories
  • 7 judging sessions, avg 7.5 entries/pair per session
  • Over $16,000 in prizes!!
Continue reading Brew Slam 2018 – Wrap Up →

Brew Slam 2018 – Entry Registration Now Open!

Brew Slam, Competitions, , ,

Entry registration is now open, and spots are already filling up quickly! Visit the Brew Slam 2018 page to learn more, and register your entries.

Entry Registration and Drop Off

Registration will close on Nov 3rd, or when the 850 entry cap is hit. Entries will be accepted at drop off and shipping locations beginning on Oct 11th. If you need to drop off earlier for any reason, please email us.

If the cap is hit, the site won’t allow any more entries to be registered. In this case we will do our best to follow up on unpaid entries, and verify if the entrants still need the spot(s).

Please do everyone (especially our Registrar) a favour, and only register entries you actually plan to submit, then pay for them right away. We will provide regular entry registration updates on social media.

Volunteering

Brew Slam is a volunteer driven competition, so please consider donating a bit of your time to help this competition happen. The Brew Slam 2018 comittee has been hard at work for months laying the groundwork for another fantastic year, please help us out by registering as a volunteer.

We need help with Bottle Sorting (Nov 4th), and Stewarding/Judging (Nov 9-11th), learn more on our Brew Slam Volunteer page. If you have a friend that is a BJCP judge, please encourage them to attend!

Brew Slam 2017 – Wrap Up

BJCP, Brew Slam, Community, Competitions, Event, , , , ,
Brew Slam 2017 is finally wrapped up after almost a whole year of planning, and a ton of execution. What a year! The last of the prizes made their way into the hands of our winners this week, so it’s finally time to write my annual wrap up post. With 806 entries judged, I’m very proud to say that we met and exceeded our goal for 2017 of becoming Canada’s largest homebrew competition (by almost 300 entries)!

Saturday morning judging

The judging and awards for Brew Slam 2017 happened back in November, but we’ve been hard at work since then making sure that everyone got their prizes as fast as we could. Don’t stop reading now because some pretty amazing things happened this year that I want to share.
Continue reading Brew Slam 2017 – Wrap Up →