The bar at SIBA BeerX as judging takes place for the National Beer Competitions

The Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA) yesterday started its first BeerX event in Sheffield with the biggest-ever judging of finalist beers for its National Beer Competition. Judges tasted more than 200 cask, bottled and keg beers, with the winners set to be announced later today.

For the first time, judging of the finalists in cask beer, bottled beer and craft beer in keg took place on the same day, under one roof — an ambition that was made possible because of SIBA’s decision to transform its annual conference into BeerX at the larger venue of Pond’s Forge in Sheffield.

Staging the beer competition required SIBA to set up a bar for the 160-plus finalist cask and keg beers. Beers were dispensed into specially SIBA-produced BeerX half-pint stemmed glasses and carried on trays to the judging tables.

The winning beers will be announced this evening, in front of an expected 600 delegates from today’s SIBA Conference as well as invited members of the public for the first time.  After the presentations, the first-ever SIBA BeerX Festival of Beer will be open to beer enthusiasts. Over the course of the three-day festival, beer lovers will be able to enjoy over 600 beers supplied by SIBA brewers to BeerX.

This blog post is not by Wobbly Wallet but originally appeared on Beer Today: http://beertoday.co.uk/?p=12807