The International Beer Challenge is organised by Agile Media and has been running for the past 22 years. With the competition expanding year on year Sensible Wine Services were asked to adapt their expertise in wine competitions to provide the organisation and logistics services to the IBC in 2014.

The 2017 IBC was the biggest to date with 777 different beers coming from 30 countries, this meant we had to change venues and chilling facilities to accommodate the extra entries. The Honourable Artillery Company near Old Street, London was chosen as the new venue. A beautiful place with perfect grounds, if a little surreal seeing a cricket pitch amongst tall building in central London. The extra chilling facilities were brought in by refrigeration hire company Just Cool It, who offer an exceptional service. All beers are either served at Cellar or Fridge conditions to get the judges the best possible tasting experience.

When the tasting is underway it’s a hectic day with 12 teams comprising of 5 judges served by 14 members of our team and 6 staff from Agile Media. Every beer is pre-poured into one of our ISO glasses and taken out on trays to be served to each team of judges. The new venue was near perfect except for the fact that the chillers were 80 yards away which meant a lot of running to the fridge for our team.

The judging finished late afternoon and with the breakdown swiftly taken care of, we left The HAC knowing another successful competition was complete.