Deadlines for two of the biggest beer events in the world are fast approaching. Anyone wanting to enter their beers into the world’s biggest beer competition, the World Beer Cup in the US has just two days to get involved. And anyone planning to run an event during Good Beer Week 2014 in Melbourne and Victoria next May has until midnight on Thursday to register here – or face late fees.
Full details on Good Beer Week, the sort of events the festival is seeking, and how to submit an event can be found in the Event Guidelines document here. Once ready to register, brewers or venues just need to head to the festival website, register their venue (and remember to make a note of their password), then follow the simple step by step instructions to input everything from event name, description and cost through to which of the five Good Beer Week program streams it will appear in.
“Following the successful launch of streams within the program in 2013, the Good Beer Week team has tweaked them slightly for 2014 to better reflect the breadth of the festival and where we plan to take it in the future,” says festival marketing manager Kate Paterson.
“Most of the streams remain, including Foodie for high end dinners and beer and food matching adventures, Beer Lover, and Beer Geek, which will now include all events aimed at home brewers. Beer Novice has been renamed Beer 101 and we have introduced a new stream, Good Times. This is the home for all the events at which entertainment takes centre stage, with great beer in a supporting role, such as last year’s Rockstar Brews events, Secret Cinema and Scavenger Hunt.”
The creation of this new stream is in keeping with the festival’s goal, she says, of broadening its appeal to new audiences and putting better beer into the hands of more people.
The 2014 festival also sees the introduction of Good Beer Week Lunchtime Specials. This will allow any venue that has registered an event to add a lunchtime menu special throughout the week at a discounted rate to ensure all the attendees who take the entire week off work or travel from interstate and overseas have plenty of options during the day. PLEASE NOTE: The ability to register these Lunchtime Specials will become available once all other registrations are approved next month.
The 2014 program will be launched at a Good Beer Showcase in Melbourne in March. This will build on this month’s inaugural Showcase at Ormond Hall and allow organisers to offer a microcosm of the full festival, while showcasing as many of the beers and brewers that will be featuring in May.
As for the World Beer Cup – “The Olympics of Beer Competitions” – which takes place in Denver, Colorado, from April 6 to 8 next year, brewers wanting to enter their beers have until October 30. The awards give brewers the chance to pit their skills against hundreds of their peers from across the globe every two years, battling it out for the golds, silvers and bronzes awarded in 95 categories. Last time around, there were medals for Aussies Redoak, Burleigh and Stone & Wood.
You can register your brewery and beers here)/contactinfo.aspx).
