There are new Brewers Cup rules! These have profound implications for the discipline. We have summarized and analyzed the consequences for you.
- Far-reaching changes to the Compulsory Service
- New score sheets, changed sensory focus, and new calculation bases
- Significant upgrade for the Head Judge with their own score sheet
- New definitions for the water to be provided by the organizer
- Far-reaching consequences for the competition setting as a whole as well as the choice of coffee in the Open Service
Compulsory Service
A lot has changed! In particular, paragraph 9.1.C. now looks completely different. Let's first look at the facts and then venture an interpretation.
In the future, not only must the provided coffee be used, but also the water provided, as well as the grinder.
The old rule 9.3.C. which stated: “Coffee ground before the competition time will be allowed.” is also eliminated. Now, the coffee must be ground during the “Competition Time” (see also 11.3 second paragraph).
Consequences: With the option to choose one's own water, it was previously relatively easy to adjust the character of the Compulsory Service coffee. By choosing softer or harder water, one could emphasize acidity, body, or sweetness. This tool is now gone. This makes the brewing recipe and brewing method all the more important in the future.
Interesting additional difficulty: the coffee cannot be conveniently weighed and sifted multiple times before the Competition Time. In fact, not even during the set-up time, if we read the rules correctly! (See, among others, 13.2.3. fifth paragraph)
Depending on the brewing method, this creates a certain time pressure within the 7 minutes of Competition Time.
Score Sheet Cup Score | Open and Compulsory Service
Flavor and Overall are no longer double-weighted. Instead, Acidity and Body are the new major contributors to points. These rule changes apply to both the Compulsory Service and the Open Service, but have very different effects.
In the Compulsory Service, they are an interesting addition to the other changes noted above. Both Acidity and Body are components that can be wonderfully worked on through the choice of brewing devices and recipe.
Decisive for acidity is how clearly it contributes to the vibrancy and fruity character of a coffee without being sour, sharp, or dominant.
Body is a very exciting metric that describes the tactile performance of the coffee in the mouth. It is not primarily about intensity, but rather about quality. A “light body” can be wonderfully soft and score many points, while a “heavy body” that is astringent and harsh scores poorly.
It is certainly good that Overall is no longer part of the double points. Compared to all other cup components defined in the Brewers Cup regulations, Overall is the door most open to subjective impressions.
In the Compulsory Service, the question of choosing coffee does not arise – because it is provided. In the Open Service, this question certainly does arise. Does this new evaluation approach have an impact on the choice of coffee? I would say yes, definitely. But let's first come to the other changes in the Open Service.
Open Service
At first glance, one might overlook the changes. Neither in the summary of the overall competition nor in the description of the Open Service itself is anything initially striking. But a lot has changed. First of all, regarding the water.
When selecting water in the Open Service, the participant is no longer bound in the future to the range defined in 11.2, which applies to the water provided in the Compulsory Service. This opens up entirely new possibilities to play even more with the topic of water! So, what the Compulsory Service loses, the Open Service gets back all the more.
- The Head Judge will now have to taste “own water” hot and at room temperature. This is to ensure that the water is flavor-free.
All other rules are hidden in the score sheet! We have already reported above on the topic of Cup Score. However, a lot has also changed in the area of the Presentation Score.
The three judges still award 40 points there, but no longer double for the now-defunct category “Overall Impression,” but in the future, double for Customer Service and Taste Description.
The Cup Scores in the upper part of the sheet are filled out by the judges as if in a blind tasting. It does not matter what the participant says, sings, or dances about it. For Taste Description, it is now compared whether what the participant described fits the blind tasting. And this is more important than ever in the future, because otherwise it hurts twice as much! And Customer Service also goes up, thus replacing Overall Impression.
However, the contents of Overall Impression do not disappear, but move to the Head Judge's score sheet. Yes, and they are not only allowed to cup in the future, but are also simultaneously the Technical Judge.
Overall Workflow incorporates Overall Impression. In the future, the workflow, the use of tools and objects, as well as their organization, will be evaluated there. Furthermore, cleanliness AND consistency are evaluated!
Finally! Of course, what matters is in the cup. But for a long time, I have felt it is important that uniform and consistent processes are also crucial. There is now space for this in the score sheet.
Also new is the evaluation of sensory uniformity. And here, a rule change is actually hidden. Because until now, it was not necessary to brew three identical cups. That is exactly what I explicitly did not do at the World Brewers Cup in Rimini. In the future, this is no longer possible. For this, all cups must perform identically over the duration of the time.
Overall, the Head Judge can award 20 points. I will come to the total scoring and the impact below.
Water
- In the future, water will be provided for the Compulsory Service (see 9.5.A and 9.1.C). Here, the possibility to play with water is eliminated, as described above.
- The range of water to be provided by the organizer has become significantly narrower and noticeably much “softer.” Instead of a target range of TDS 150 mg/L and an allowed range of TDS 75 – 250 mg/L, in the future, TDS 85 mg/L or a range of 50 – 125 mg/L will be required. The “Calcium Hardness” is set at 51 mg/L instead of 68 mg/L.
What does NOT change!!!
9.4.D. This rule has been the downfall of numerous participants worldwide. It remains in place. It states nothing more than that at least 120 ml must be served in a vessel. If the participant pours from a brewing vessel into a cup, the served cup must contain exactly these 120 ml!
Scoring
In the future, only the Compulsory Round will be counted towards the final. Up until now, all First Round results were “carried over.” As a result, the points from a potentially bad or good Open Service round are dropped. This makes the results of the Compulsory Service all the more important! Because they add up fully to the Open Service results of the final!That reads easily, but it is a very big deal! I interpret this as a strong upgrade of individual brewing skills to deliver with a foreign coffee!
The Open Service is calculated as follows. The results of Total Cup and Total Presentation are added per judge and divided by 1.40. Subsequently, the final scores from each judge are added and the average is calculated by dividing by three. This number is then in turn multiplied by 1.4, the score from the Head Judge is added, and that is then divided by 1.6. Example: J1 gives 71, J2 73, J3 72 points = 72 on average x 1.4 = 100.8 + 15 from the Head Judge / 1.6 = 72.375
Seems complicated. It is too. Let's take the same example and let the Head Judge give more or fewer points, in this case 10, 12, 14, etc., and the sensory judges remain at their average. Then it looks like this:
10 => 69.25, 12 => 70.5, 14 => 71.75, 16 => 73, 18 => 74.25, 20 => 75.5
Ten points of the Head Judge score are therefore around 6.25 on the total score here. That is quite something! These are points that nobody wants to miss out on. In the final of a championship, the level is likely to be very tight, and then two points more or less from the Head Judge really hurt!
Summary and Conclusion!!!
I venture the claim: in the future, the new champions and world champions will be chosen via the Compulsory Service. And that is good, because that is the part of the competition where a brewer can show off their skills the most! The importance of the coffee in the Open Service is being tempered. There are still many points to be gained there, but the presentation and consistency in the work will be evaluated more strongly.Lately, the Brewers Cup has increasingly become a question of the available budget for exquisite coffees and has been dominated by certain varieties or green coffee companies. This development is now receiving a damper.
In fact, the higher scores for acidity and body open up entirely new possibilities in the selection of green coffees. I am excited to see what comes of that in the coming years.
Overall, I would say that the new regulations do the Brewers Cup a lot of good. I believe that the Brewers Cup will remain on the fast track with these regulations in its luggage! In that respect, my big praise goes to the WCE team, which worked out the new rules!
PS: This is also important. :)
