This weekend in Berkeley, California, is the Western Regional Barista Competition - where I can only imagine great coffee will be served. You know I love good coffee, but alas I don't see me making this event. It seems as much as I like coffee, I won't go through any great lengths to get a cup like I do for beer. Not yet anyway.
This isn't exactly a coffee post, as I've got questions that relate to beer. Really.
The WRBC appears to be playing on a level field, from what I've gathered the beans are provided by the organizers and not brought in by the participants. I've not received confirmation on this, although I've tried to call a couple of local participants. If that's the case, the competition will truly be about the skills of the barista, and not simply about who can procure the best beans.
Now, on to beer.
Could you imagine running a brewers competition like this? I would be so interested in seeing some of the country's elite brewers sign up for a friendly competition where they were all given the same ingredients to make a single batch of beer - say a brown ale. The beers would then be "judged" by whomever, assuming it'd be industry folks mixed with some pro judges. The winner could then boast, although they likely wouldn't, that it was truly their skill that set them apart and not the ingredients available to him/her.
I'm not an event organizer, but if I were this would be something I'd look into a bit, see if there were any brewers interested in playing along. Hell, with so many of the top-tier brewers being so friendly with each other, it doesn't seem implausible that they'd organize something like this among themselves - just for fun. Right?
Anyway, that's all. Reading through the barista competition stuff got me thinking, figured I'd share my ill-conceived brewer competition. Cheers!
