Are You Brewing Gold? Enter The Most Prestigious Beer Competition in the ‘World’

One of the world’s most prestigious and esteemed craft beer competitions, the World Beer Cup® (WBC), has celebrated the best in beer every year since the Brewers Association started handing out awards in 1996. In 2024, an international panel of 280 judges tasted 9,300 beers in 110 categories from 2,060 breweries in 50 countries. Registration recently opened for the 2025 World Beer Cup, so we sat down with Brewers Association (BA) Competition Director Chris Williams to learn more about how this became “The Olympics of Beer Competitions,” how many countries participate every year, and why they’ve opened up two entirely new categories.

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Almost Three Decades of Celebrating and Competing

Brewers Association Competition Director, Chris Williams | Photography courtesy of the Brewers Association

“We tout the World Beer Cup as the largest and most prestigious beer competition in the world,” said Williams during his opening remarks at the 2024 World Beer Cup Awards Ceremony.

With an almost three-decade history, WBC has built its reputation carefully and intentionally. Starting with the original BA founder, Charlie Papazian, WBC initially only happened every two years.

But it was a true competition right from day one.

“Charlie was really big on taking U.S. craft beers and pitting them against big beer cultures across the globe,” explains Williams. “World Beer Cup grew from there.”

With around twenty international breweries participating in the early years, WBC has grown to over fifty countries, according to Williams, including Japan, Germany, Norway, Canada, and Argentina, to name a few.

While Williams isn’t sure how many beer breweries entered in the early years, he estimates it was in the hundreds. By 2022, WBC had reached a new high. “It was our largest [competition],” Williams notes. “It had 10,500 entries!”

Putting the World in World Beer Cup

Photography courtesy of the Brewers Association

The World Beer Cup continues to be one of the largest international competitions out there, with the most entries and participation from breweries worldwide than any other beer competition.

With just over 2,000 breweries entering the latest WBC, nearly twenty-five percent of those were from international beermakers.

“That number, we’ve been drastically changing,” says Williams. “The biggest part of World Beer Cup is trying to get and keep that international participation.”

Williams notes it’s definitely a challenge when you live in a country with over 9,500 of its own breweries, “but we’re always trying to keep that international participation up because it’s fun to see the names of different breweries scattered across the different categories.”

When I attended the WBC awards ceremony for the first time at the Craft Brewers Conference (CBC) in Nashville, TN, in 2023, I distinctly remember the excitement from domestic and international breweries alike.

Perhaps the most claps and whistles actually came for the Argentinian Juguetes Perdidos, which picked up a gold in the Experimental Beer category for its Abrette Sésamo #1. The team ran through the auditorium halls with a vast sky-blue and white Argentinian flag, high-fiving folks along the way. Their smiles could not have been bigger on stage when they received their award.

The WBC truly gives breweries the chance to pit their beers against some of the most storied brewing countries in the world.

The Olympics of Beer Competitions

The 21st Amendment Brewery team celebrates a gold medal for its new core beer, Amendment Lager | Photography courtesy of the Brewers Association

Williams isn’t exactly sure who coined this phrase, but he thinks the nickname perfectly describes WBC.

When WBC first started, most other beer competitions offered awards based on point values. WBC, on the other hand, handed out one “Gold,” “Silver,” and “Bronze” in any given category. Just like the Olympics.

“Putting your beer up against the rest of the world can be validating,” says Williams. “It’s a small world, but it’s a big world, too. … People get really stoked to know they’re making one of the best beers in the world.”

In the 2023 competition, forty-four international breweries medaled, jumping significantly this year to sixty-six awards across multiple categories. Countries represented included Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, China, Peru, Mexico, Canada, Taiwan, Brazil, Germany, Spain, Chile, Argentina, Italy, France, and Norway.

In fact, the very first award announced—a bronze in the “American Wheat Beer” category—went to a beer called Spring Valley Silk Ale from Spring Valley Brewery in Shibuya, Japan, which bested fifty other beers.

Overall, Canada crushed with seventeen awards, followed by Germany with twelve, and Japan nabbed eight of their own.

“Between Oregon and California, Japan is crushing it,” some folks next to me exclaimed during the ceremony. “We gotta go to Japan and drink some beers over there.”

Williams points out that one of the significant benefits of hosting an international competition and awards ceremony at the most important industry conference in the States is that “you bring in those perspectives from all across the globe.” After announcing the awards, he says it’s pretty standard to see breweries doing “cross-sea collaborations.”

Just another way that WBC lives up to its name.

What’s New at the World Beer Cup in 2025

Photography courtesy of the Brewers Association

For the first time in 2025, WBC welcomes cider as a vertical with separate award categories. Introduced this past October at the Great American Beer Festival, the cider competition saw a lot of success.

“I’m excited to see what happens with the introduction of cider [at WBC],” says Williams. “There’s some really great cider cultures out there, such as France, UK, Norway and Spain.”

Also new to WBC next year will be an entirely new category. The BA recently announced the addition of “Italian-Style Pilsener” to its GABF and WBC competitions.

“We’ve seen [this style] a bunch in the U.S. in the past few years,” says Williams, “and it’s really picked up steam in the market.”

Williams loves the idea of introducing a new lager category.

For the past four years or so, the category “Juicy Hazy IPA” has dominated, with 326 entries last year, followed closely by “American-Style Indian Pale Ale,” which used to be the most-entered category.

“The most interesting thing is that right behind those comes lager categories like light lagers and German pilsners,” Williams points out. “Lager categories are really coming out and overtaking some of the hoppier ones.”

Whether Italian pilsner will make it into the top most-entered categories remains to be seen, but Williams thinks it’s a trending addition.

Sweet! How Do I Register for the World Beer Cup?

Graphic courtesy of the Brewers Association

The BA’s biggest goal with WBC remains simple: keep raising the number of international breweries participating.

“I would love to see more names outside the U.S. on that winner’s list,” shares Williams.

Think your brewery or cidery has what it takes to stand up against the world?

Confident that your beers or ciders can compete in “The Olympics of Beer Competitions”?

Then you should enter one of the largest and most prestigious international beer competitions.

That part, at least, is easy.

Just visit worldbeercup.org to learn more.

Registration officially closes on December 13th, 2024, but Williams says they’re flexible.

“We want as many breweries to participate as we can, especially those outside the U.S.,” says Williams. “If somebody happens to see this or read this after the deadline, don’t be afraid to reach out and ask us if they can still get in there because generally speaking, if we can do it, we will!”

REGISTER HERE