1997 Spirit of Free Beer Photo Gallery

Photos and text by Mark Stevens, stevens@burp.org

Take 401 beers, 60 beer judges, 15 stewards, 5 supporting staff, 1,600 scoresheets, 300 pencils, 2,000 cups, a beautiful early summer day, and mix it well with 1 keg of calibration beer and 300 grilled bratwurts, and what do you get? If you're not careful, you might get a healthy dose of chaos, but if you're a homebrewer from the mid-Atlantic region, you probably already know that you get the Spirit of Free Beer --- the premier homebrew competition of Brewers United for Real Potables (most definitely not chaos).

Months of planning and preparation pay off as the entries start arriving, breathing life into the competition, even though it means plenty of work for the competition staff. Entries need to be examined, logged in, assigned random ID numbers, and stored in the walk-in cooler at Brew America.


Spirit of Free Beer Registrar, Bret Wortman, maintains a healthy sense of humor despite the dozens of hours that he needs to put in to log every one of the 401 entries.

More than 200 entries arrived on the Saturday before the competition. After being logged by the registrar, they wait in boxes outside the cooler until he and the head steward have time to put them in the cooler correctly. Organization of the cooler is a critical key to smooth operation during judging.


Competition day starts early as judges and stewards start arriving at 8:00 am to help get the competition ready to roll promptly at 9:00 am. The vast majority of judges in the Spirit of Free Beer participate actively in the Beer Judge Certification Program, ensuring entrants of quality feedback and fair evaluation. Almost 60 judges from 9 different states and of many skill levels participated in Spirit of Free Beer, making it a fun event for everyone and a great opportunity for younger judges to be paired with and to learn from some of the region's more experienced judges.


Judging commences. Two flights were judged at each table with three judges per flight. Stewards gather at the walk-in cooler (rear) to pull entries for the judges.


Christine Newman --- one of BURP's vast armada of knowledgable beer judges --- evaluates the aroma and flavor of an entry.


Long-time brewer, BURP membership chairman and founding father, BJCP judge, and resident expert on Scottish ales and indigenous brewing practices, Bill Ridgely judges a group of beers.


John Dittman, former president of the Boston Wort Processors, is an active BURP member and a knowledgable BJCP judge.


Long judging days call for plenty of good food! One of BURP's masters of the barbecue grill, Jim Tyndall takes a break from judging to grill fresh bratwursts for everyone.


The agony of victory in Spirit of Free Beer is that you have to lug all your prizes home. Jim Rorick's winning wheat beer nets him quite a cache of great stuff including 50 pounds of grain and a set of Schnieder Weisse wheat beer glasses. If you enter next year's competition, that could be you walking away with the prizes and honors....good luck!



Mark Stevens, stevens@burp.org