Reflections on the first Santa Fe Open Brewing Competition

This past weekend, the inaugural Santa Fe Open Brewing Competition took place in, you’ve guessed it, Santa Fe. From Friday morning to the awards ceremony on Sunday afternoon, the Sangre De Cristo Craft Brewers homebrew club (and friends and family) came together in a huge concerted effort to put on an event that proved an even bigger success than anyone could have hoped for.

A first for the club, this homebrew competition was the culmination of a year’s worth of planning and hard work, and it went off with hardly a glitch in the program. Despite some small issues with the software used for registering, everything went smoothly according to director of stewards Phil Rickert. And it was no small feat as with 330 entries, they dealt with an influx in excess of 900 bottles. Thankfully, people really showed up to work. Judge director Jim Steinbach coordinated with 36 judges, 17 of them BJCP certified. Rickert said that all 14 stewards that regist

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