European Beer Star Competition

This is one of the world's largest and most prestigious comeptition, with its awards ceremony always being held at the biggest beer trade fair of Europe, called BrauBeviale, in Nuremberg.

It gets its high international reputation from the strong jury of experts and the record numbers of participants. Over a 100 judges (in 2016 there were 124 of them) from at least 30 countries are all master brewers, beer sommeliers and acknowledged beer connoisseurs. They assess the beers by blind tasting, judging their color, smell, flavor, aromatic profile and overall impression.

Its name lets us assume that it is a European competition - which it was at the beginning. However, due to its reputation, entries come from all the continents these days. For instance, there were more than 2100 entries from 44 countries from all over the world in 2016, which is why it's considered rather like a world competition.
In this competition, unlike in many others, only one gold, one silver and one bronze medal is awarded per category. Moreover, if none of the beers reach the required level of a category, no medal is given. As hard as it is to believe, it has happened a number of times in the history of the competition. HopTop Brewery’s stout beer, called Midnight Express, won a bronze medal in this competition, which makes us the first and only Hungarian beer brewery so far to receive such recognition.

Participating countries in 2016:

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Cambodia, Canada, China, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Guatemala, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Italy, Japan Latvia, Malta, Moldova, Myanmar, Namibia, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, San Marino, Slovakia, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, Taiwan, Thailand, Ukraine, USA

More information: http://private-brauereien.de/ebs-en/

Commonwealt Cup

The announcement of results of this competition is held every year at the Craft Brews & Food Fest in Lexington, Kentucky, USA.

This is a qualifying competition, which means that each judge gives a certain score for each beer and it is summed up at the end. Then, the resulting total score is compared to a category system where, according the score, the beers awarded a gold, silver or bronze medal.

Typically, in these kinds of competitions more than one gold, silver, or bronze medal is given, with a maximum percentage being determined in advance as of how many medals can be handed out among all entries in total.

In 2017 more than 60 breweries participated in the competition, typically from the USA, which is a record high in the history of this event. This requires a large number of judges who assess the beers according to their color, smell, taste, flavor and overall impression by blind tasting.

HopTop Brewery won a gold medal on this competition for its beer called Uluru, an American type of wheat beer, which probably is the reason why the judges liked it so much.

More information: http://us.alltechbrewsandfood.com/-commonwealth-cup

Dublin Craft Beer Cup

The competition's award ceremony is held yearly in Ireland at the Craft Beers&Food Fair in Dublin.

This too is a qualifying competition, on which the judges give a certain score for each beer to be summed up at the end. The resulting total score is compared to a category system where according the score the beers awarded a gold, silver or bronze medal. As commonly done on these sort of competitions, more than one gold, silver or bronze medals are given with a maximum percentage being determined in advance as of how many medals can be handed out among all entries in total.

There were 370 beers submitted in 7 categories in 2017 with nearly 30 experts assessing via blind tasting, and awarding a total number of 16 gold medals.

Four beers of HopTop Brewery named Uluru, Double Check, Midnight Express and Green Zone won silver and bronze medals in this competition.

More information: http://eu.alltechbrewsandfood.com/-dublin-cup