The Honey Beer Competition is open to all active breweries operating within the United States that commercially produce honey beers in the following categories: general ale, general lager, Belgian-style ales, fruit, vegetable and spice beer, stouts and porters, IPAs, braggots, wheat beers, sours, barrel aged, hard seltzers, ciders and other. Multiple entries per category will be accepted.
Registration for the competition is free. Each brewery may submit multiple entries per category into the competition as long as the styles are within our guidelines. The 2024 Honey Beer Competition will be limited to 300 entries. All applicants must complete the online registration form to be considered registered for the competition.
The 2024 Honey Beer Competition will take place in St. Louis, Missouri. Date is TBD. The judging will be closed to the public.
The Honey Beer Competition medals will be awarded on a merit basis by a majority vote. Judges are asked to evaluate the beers in silence until everyone on the panel has finished their evaluation. A moderator records the judges’ votes.
Beers are presented to judges in a blind tasting format. Judging is absolutely anonymous; no beer bottles are visible to the judges at any time until the competition is over. No judge may evaluate a product in which he/she has a stake or ownership. Judging is not based on personal preference, but by product adherence to the guidelines as set by the Beer Judge Certification Program.
The judges’ decision is final and awards will not be changed after the judging is finished.
All entries will receive BJCP judges notes and all winners will receive a physical medal and a digital seal for use on packaging and promotional materials.
All entries will be judged for the design and packaging awards. There is no additional registration required.
Package your beers to ensure they won’t break during transit. The National Honey Board is not responsible for broken shipments, however we will contact the brewery if broken bottles are received. If breweries wish, they can include cold packs in their shipments.
Beers sent in coolers or other special containers will not be returned, and any unused beers will not be sent back to the applicant after the competition.
Please consider the environment before shipping your entries. We encourage all breweries to use recyclable packaging and materials when possible.
Smoke beers, pilsners, amber lager, helles, Oktoberfest beers, Vienna lagers, Maerzen, Dunkel, Bocks, Dopplebocks and other general lagers.
Golden / blonde ales, kolsch, pale ales, red ales, scotch ales, cream ales and other general ales.
American amber ale, American brown ale and California common.
Belgian-style blond or pale ale, Belgian-style witbiers, saisons, Biere de Garde, Belgian-style dubbels, Belgian-style tripels, Belgian-style quadrupels and other Belgian-style ales.
American-style fruit beers, fruit wheat beers, Belgian-style fruit beers, pumpkin beers, herb and spice beers and other fruit and vegetable beers.
American-style IPAs, Double IPAs, specialty IPAs and other IPAs.
A blend of mead and beer with a sweet flavor profile, or a beer where 25% of the fermentables come from honey.
Brown porter, robust porter, American-style stouts, oatmeal stouts, imperial stouts, cream stouts and other porters and stouts.
American-style wheat beer, German-style wheat ale and other wheat beers.
Beers in this category include established historical beers made with honey, and/or brewing traditions from any era or part of the world that don’t fit within another beer style defined within these guidelines. Examples include Kotbusser, Kvass, Gruit, Sahti or others.
American-style sour ales, brett beers, fruited American-style sour ales, Mixed culture brett beers, gose, Belgian-style lambic our sour ales and other sour beers.
Chocolate beers, coffee beers, strong beers, experimental beers, barley wines and other unclassified beers.
Any lager, ale or hybrid beer that has been aged for a period of time in a wooden barrel or in contact with wood.
Hard seltzer, spiked seltzer or hard sparkling water made with honey.
No subcategories available.
All beers will be entered into this category and judged on the use of honey and honey bee imagery in the name, graphics and description of the beer.
*Categories may be combined if there are not enough entries to judge in that category. In the event of combined categories, judges will be advised of the original category and instructed to judge the entry according to the original category.