Masters Championship of Amateur Brewing
Introduction by Mark Tumarkin

I hope you are all familiar with MCAB, the Masters Championship of Amateur Brewing. But just in case; it is a relatively new competition (this is the third year) and high quality homebrewing conference rolled into one. It is designed to bring together the best homebrewers to be evaluated by the best judges. The concept is simple. Each year a number of styles are chosen. A number of the leading homebrew competitions are chosen to be qualifying events.

You must win in a MCAB Qualifying Style at one of these events in order to send your beer to the MCAB itself. There you will face competition there from winners at other Qualifying Events (the Sunshine Challenge is one of this years Qualifying Events). It's kind of like the first round and second round of the National Homebrew Competition, only much more competitive. Most of the judges for the MCAB itself are BJCP National, Masters, and Grand Master levels, so the evaluation is also of the highest caliber.

In addition to the competition, the MCAB also hosts a homebrewers convention at the competition. This features seminars, presentations, etc by some incredible people, as well as pub crawls and other homebrew events. Different local clubs hosts the MCAB each year, with this year's event (MCAB III) being held in San Francisco in April.

Anyhow, check out Luis Bonham's post below for info on MCAB IV. You can also check out the MCAB website for further information - http://hbd.org/mcab/

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 Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 20:46:28 -0600
From: "Louis K. Bonham" 
Subject: MCAB IV Announcement

The Steering Committee for the Masters Championship of Amateur Brewing
(MCAB) is pleased to announce the Qualifying Styles for MCAB IV, and the
list of competitions that are being invited to be Qualifying Events for MCAB
IV.

Qualifying Styles -- Originally, the MCAB Qualifying Styles were limited to
a eighteen individual BJCP substyles.  This format proved less than ideal in
some instances, in that some Qualifying Events reported very small numbers
of entries in some of the Qualifying Styles, making qualification process in
those styles less competitive than we had wished.  We therefore have been
experimenting with an expanded Qualifying Style concept, in which the
Qualifying Style is defined in terms of a single BJCP category, including
all of its substyles.  This has worked very well, both in terms of
increasing competitiveness and making things easier on the Qualifying
Events.

Thus, for MCAB IV, the Qualifying Styles will be BJCP Styles 1-20:

1.    American Lager
2.    European Pale Lager
3.    Light Ale
4.    Bitter & English Pale Ale
5.    Scottish Ales
6.    American Pale Ales
7.    IPA
8.    Koelsch & Altbier
9.    German Amber Lager
10.   Brown Ale
11.   English and Scottish Strong Ale
12.   Barleywine and Imperial Stout
13.   European Dark lager
14.   Bock
15.   Porter
16.   Stout
17.   Wheat Beer
18.   Strong Belgian Ale
19.   Belgian and French Ale
20.   Lambic and Belgian Sour Ale

All substyles within these categories will be eligible.  In cases where a
Qualifying Events offers ribbon categories for individual BJCP substyles
within a Qualifying Style (e.g., APA and California Common), the Qualifying
Event will select between the winners of those substyles to determine the
MCAB Qualifier.

Invited Qualifying Events:  The Steering Committee hereby invites the
following competitions to serve as Qualifying Events for MCAB IV (unless a
specific date is given, dates given are approximate):

1.    Kansas City Bier Meisters Competition (February 2001), hosted by the
Kansas City Bier Meisters (www.kcbiermeisters.org).
2.    Boston Homebrew Competition (February 2001), hosted by the Boston Wort
Processors (www.wort.org)
3.    Reggale and Dredhop (March 2001), hosted by Hop Barley and the Alers
(Boulder, Colorado) (members.nbci.com/hbaweb).
4.    World Cup of Beer (May 24, 2001)
(www.bayareamashers.org/worldcup/worldcup.htm), hosted by the Bay Area
Mashers (California)
5.    Bluebonnet Brew Off (March 23-24, 2001)
(http://welcome.to/bluebonnet) -- hosted by the NET Hoppers Homebrew Club
(Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas) .
6.    Drunk Monk Challenge (March/April 2001), hosted by the Urban Knaves of
Grain (http://home.earthlink.net/~mckennst/ukg.html) (Chicago area).
7.    Oregon Homebrew Festival (April/May 2001), hosted by Heart of the
Valley Homebrewers (www.hotv.org)
8.    Sunshine Challenge (May 2001), hosted by the Central Florida Home
Brewers (www.cfhb.org)  (Orlando, Florida)
9.    Spirit of Free Beer (May/June 2001), hosted by BURP
(http://burp.org/index.html)  (Virginia/Maryland area)
10.   BUZZ-Off (May/June 2001), hosted by BUZZ (Philadelphia area).   [BUZZ
has indicated that while it would be willing to again serve as a MCAB
Qualifying Event, it would be willing to stand aside if another qualified
area competition wished to do so.  Any interested clubs should contact Louis
Bonham before January 1, 2001.]
11.    Edmonton Homebrew Competition (June 2001), hosted by the Edmonton
Homebrewers Guild (Canada).
12.    Dixie Cup (October 2001), hosted by the Foam Rangers
(www.foamrangers.com) (Houston, Texas).
13.    Happy Holiday Homebrew Competition (December 2001), hosted by the St.
Louis Brews (www.stlbrews.org) (St. Louis area).

Finally, an update of MCAB III.  It will be held April 28-29, 2001 in the SF
Bay area.  (Exact location TBA.) The local clubs that have currently signed
up to host this event are:

Homebrewers of Marin and Elsewhere (HOME)
Bay Area Mashers (BAM)
San Andreas Malts

Chief Organizer of the event will be Mike Riddle (riddle@sonic.net). Other
organizers include amateur brewing luminaries Byron Burch, Dave Sapsis, Russ
Wigglesworth, Paul Wright, Charlie Gow, and Dave Brattstrom.  (Individuals
or companies interested in assisting or sponsoring aspects of MCAB III
should contact Mike Riddle.)

Entry packets should go out to the qualifying brewers before the end of the
year.  I will also be working to get the MCAB website updated, including
posting of a list of folks who have qualified for MCAB III.

As always, please contact me with any questions regarding the MCAB.

All the best -- Louis K. Bonham
for the MCAB Steering Committee
lkbonham@hbd.org

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