OnTap Magazine

ontapmag.co.za | Summer 2025 | 43 T he atmosphere at the annual Intervarsitybrew™ is always energetically charged with a blend of enthusiasm, hope, and something that can only be described as passion for the art of brewing. There is no formal brewing-specific degree in South Africa, and although that might change in the future, the students who partake in Intervarsitybrew™ are usually chemical or mechanical engineers, as well as food science, biotechnology, microbiology, and biochemistry candidates. All of these skills are needed by the big multinational breweries who sponsor most of the prizes for the competition, in addition to the smaller craft breweries popping up all over South Africa. And it starts with skill development, through competitions like these. Something we don’t often spend much time thinking about is the creativity that goes into the beer labels we see on the shelves. However, at Intervarsitybrew™, they have always recognized this value. In parallel with the beer competition, there is also a very important beer label competition. This is a vital component of every product-based business’s needs, and beer is no different. Since moving to Central University of Technology (CUT), the event has gone from strength to strength. It takes place over three days on the CUT campus in Bloemfontein, where a stunningly designed, glass-covered quad plays host to many talks by industry experts. These talks range from demonstrative sensory talks to presentations by successful brewers, offering insight into the industry opportunities (direct and indirect). This event is educational from start to finish, professionally run by the operational team, and expertly directed by Prof. Olga de Smidt. (De Smidt herself is a quiet, humble background presence, always sharing credit with her team.) True to this spirit, nobody is left out of the created opportunities; the CUT Hotel School students put on a culinary show for lunches and dinners, and help with the competition logistics. It’s a sort of practical training, a taster of what the world might hold after completing one’s studies. By Friday, most of the judges for the competition have arrived, and while the student teams present their beers, designs, and general challenges to their peers and delegates, the judges are kept blind and ushered into a sensory calibration session. A calibration session is a way to recap some flavours, off or otherwise, and all with the aim of standardizing the language used on judging forms. Essentially, this means that the feedback from the judges makes sense and helps the student brew teams improve their brewing processes. Some benchmark examples of the styles in the competition are tasted to ensure every judge has a quality example of the year’s styles freshly in mind, which serves as a way to cancel out the noise of judging a competition. After these sessions and presentations, all attendees mingle with a sit-down meal prepared by the CUT Hotel School. On Saturday morning, while the student teams are setting up their stands and getting their beer ready to pour samples for the attendees, the judges of both competitions take their seats elsewhere on campus to score the various aspects of the beers and labels. Each team would have entered a beer in each of the six styles; these include Lagers, IPAs, Sour/ Fruit beers, African WiLD Ales, Summer (low alcohol) beers, and Aged beers. Beers are judged according to the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) guidelines, by industry stalwarts and sensory-trained tasters. Judges score the beers along strict criteria, such as the presence of off- flavours, whether the colour of the beer is in range of the BJCP-set style guides, and to generally assess the quality of the beer and identify areas for improvement. No one judge can judge all the beers, so the entries are split across multiple tables. From these tables, the best- scoring beers are compared on a “best of category” table using judges from each table to ensure a breadth of palates. The winners of all these beers then go on to a “best of show” table, where these beers are compared alongside one another to determine an outright winner. The judges are blind throughout this process and have no idea who produced which beer. At the same time, the label competition fields six judges who expertly study the labels to find the best label of the year, as well as some runners-up and honourable mentions. Miralde Kotze, the convener of these judges, explains that there are strict criteria for the label competition. “We look at legal aspects, visual communication, and whether the beer tastes the way it says on the label.” She elaborates: “I am the convenor of the label judges; therefore, my design opinion does not count, I only judge or evaluate the legal aspects (16%) of each label and I do that before the competition. It is based on a yes or no criterion of legal information that must be on the labels, such as manufacturing address, best-before date, storage instructions, product identification, etc.” This panel of judges, who are all invited from the marketing and design industry, then independently evaluate the beer labels on standardised scoring sheets, which are then collated by Kotze. They deliberate and discuss to finalize the first, second and third place winners based on the scores. “Debates and discussions are