MCAB Overview

MCAB is more an event than an organization – the Master’s Championship of Amateur Brewing is an annual national championship competition for homebrewers.  It is open to all amateur homebrewers of legal age.  Brewers qualify for the MCAB championship event by competing in independent homebrewing competitions that have been selected as Qualifying Events for MCAB.  These Qualifying Events are located all over North America, and the qualifying cycle runs for the entire calendar year.  Placing first in any MCAB-recognized category (see Definition of Terms) qualifies the entrant for admission into the MCAB championship competition, which is typically scheduled to take place early the following calendar year. 

Because each qualifier is a Qualifying Event first place winner, the competition is very strong.  In the words of the announcement for the very first MCAB, it is a “champions’ championship.”  Awards are given to the first three places in each category, as well as Grand Master and Grand Champion awards for best of show and most medal points, respectively.  Simply qualifying for entry into the MCAB championship event is a mark of an excellent brewer because only first place finishers qualify, and the individual Qualifying Events are generally the biggest and best homebrew competitions.

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MCAB Qualification Rules and Details

You can only qualify for the MCAB once per category per year; that is to say, if you place first in one Qualifying Event with a Dry Stout and first in another with an Imperial Stout, you can only send one Stout entry to the MCAB championship, in any Stout subcategory you want.  Additional first place finishes in other Qualifying Events in the same style category would reduce your competition in the MCAB championship, but you would still only be allowed one entry in that category.  However, you do not have to enter the same subcategory in the MCAB event – you could qualify for IPA with an English IPA, but you could enter an Imperial IPA in the MCAB.  Brewers may qualify in as many categories as they can win in the year’s Qualifying Events.  A running list of Qualifying Brewers will be kept on this web site: Qualifying Brewers  The list will be updated as the information is supplied by each Qualifying Event.

Aside from the American Homebrewers Association's National Homebrew Competition, almost all competitions combine or split categories.  This is done for a variety of reasons - usually it is to ensure that no category has an insufficient number of entries, and in some cases it is to ensure that no category has so many entries as to overwhelm the judges.  In the past, MCAB had some complex rules for split and combined categories, but we have decided to simplify the process by taking only the first place winners in all (MCAB-relevant) categories.  Thus, if American Pale Ale is split out into its own category and American Amber and Brown are left in another category, there would be two qualifiers in American Ale – one Pale and one Amber or Brown.  There can also be instances in which there is no qualifier in a category: if European Amber and Dark Lagers are combined and an Oktoberfest wins that category, then it would qualify for MCAB and there would be no qualifier from the Dark Lager category.

Team entries will be treated as a single entry, but all team members must be listed.

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