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About the Official Review
The Beer Connoisseur's Official Review includes beer reviews, cider reviews, mead reviews and seltzer reviews conducted by our panel of expert judges. The highest-scoring beers can be found in the publication's year-end Best Beer & Breweries Awards.
The Beer Connoisseur's Official Review includes beer reviews, cider reviews, mead reviews and seltzer reviews conducted by our panel of expert judges. At the end of each year, the editorial department compiles the year's reviews into a list of the top-rated overall products, and by the most populous style categories, and then acknowledges these outstanding beverages in its January editorial in print, online and in social media.
The highest-scoring products, as well as the brewers who produced them, are then awarded in The Beer Connoisseur's annual The Best Beer & Breweries Awards.
Questions? Email us at: editorial (at) beerconnoisseur (dot) com
HOW TO ENTER (Beer, Non-Alcoholic Beer, Cider, Mead, Seltzer)
The Official Review is a highly controlled single-blind format that ensures unbiased evaluations of your brands.
We prefer not to acquire products from retailers. We believe beverages shipped direct from producers results in the most accurate evaluation of the beverages, or the way the brewers intend it to be enjoyed.
This provides consumers with the best information about the out-the-door quality of the beverages, and it provides brewers with the most accurate critical evaluation of their work.
This process is labor-intensive and costly, and we thus have the following entry requirements.
- Producers who hold an active Tier 1, Trade Membership "Business Subscription" to The Beer Connoisseur® magazine & online may enter one (1) product per year to the Official Review.
- Producers may enter up to fourteen (14) products per year by joining as a Tier 2, Tier 3 or Tier 4 Trade Member.
Judges Panel & Evaluation Process
Meet our Panel of Judges | How We Score
The Official Review follows the BJCP style and scoring criteria. Judges must have at minimum a BJCP National certification or a Master Cicerone® certification in order to sit on the panel. Judges are required to have an assistant that accepts beer/cider shipments, stores the samples and prepares the samples for the single-blind evaluation. The Review Coordinator manages sample shipments in order to reduce shipping distance between the brewery and the judge, while also restricting local beer from being evaluated by local judges. The judge makes the final determination of which style category the sample is evaluated against and the style is referenced by the judge at the beginning of his/her written review.
Editorial Use / Audience Exposure
Reviews receive high exposure to our audience of 8 million annual readers. Reviews are used in the following ways:
1. Published to website and optimized for SEO (2.2MM)
2. Included in the weekly Official Review eNewsletter (Fridays, 50k)
3. High-scoring reviews receive brewer Q&As published to the website and that are used in our Sunday "Recommended Beer with Brewer Q&A" eNewsletter.
4. High scoring reviews are published in the January annual print edition "Best Beers of the Year" and "Best Beers of the Year by Style Category."
5. World Class rated beers and cider receive 4 pages of editorial in the annual print edition that include the judges reviews, brewer Q&A and full page photography.
6. All reviews count towards our "Breweries of the Year" awards also published in annual print edition.
7. Reviews are periodically published to our social media platforms for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest (110k).
The Best Beer & Breweries Awards
The Best Beer & Breweries Awards presented by The Beer Connoisseur® magazine & online is the epic annual celebration of the world's top-rated beer, cider, mead and seltzer as reviewed in the publication's esteemed Official Review.
Every January, the magazine's editorial department compiles the highest-rated products from the year into a best-of-list for national and international publication in print and online.
It then compiles the top three-rated products from brewers and producers to award the top three breweries of the year.
Furthermore, it acknowledges the best products in the most populous style categories within the year.
Promote Your Ratings & Awards
You’ve Earned It. Now Promote It!
Showcase your achievements by applying our ratings and awards medals and seals across your brand’s sales, advertising and branding portfolio.
Showcase Your Ratings & Awards
You’ve Earned It. Now Showcase it!
Showcase your achievements at your brewery or taproom by hanging ratings and awards certificates for visiting patrons to see.
CONTACT US
Questions about the Official Review?
Email us at: editorial (at) beerconnoisseur (dot) com