Wow! It’s been a fortnight and even Oktoberfest is halfway done by now, but the dust hasn’t settled yet and I am still waiting for a moment to catch my breath. If you have been following any certified beer sommelier or someone related to one in any way, especially a Dutch one, you cannot have missed the eighth World Cup of Beer Sommeliers in München earlier this month!
And what a competition it was! And even though I won’t even pretend to try to keep up anymore with the social media culture of instant and continuous updates, I really want to write about this one. It’s buzzing and bouncing around in my head, never mind I am still exhausted and could sleep for a few more weeks as well. Because I wrote about the World Cup several times before now, but never as a participant!
And this was probably the best time to have been placed for this competition, because:
WE WON GOLD AND SILVER AT THE WORLD CUP!
Léon is the World Champion and Dennis brought home the silver trophy!
Which is even more of an accomplishment considering that no other country ever won both trophies before and that this competition has generally been dominated by German speaking participants in the past. Not to mention they both found ALL the beer styles in the preliminaries, which is probably a first as well!
Ah, but I am getting ahead of myself. I began at the end. Or more, the start of a whole new story alltogether. And I want to tell you this story first. This is the fourth time the Netherlands participated in the World Cup. You can read about 2019 and 2022 in earlier posts:
Getting a spot on the National Team
First thing first, to be able to participate in the World Cup, you first need to be placed by winning a National Cup. For beer sommeliers from countries without a National Cup it is possible to apply for a spot in a different way. That is how the first Dutch beer sommeliers participated in the World Cup before the first Dutch Cup! There is another way (for now). Master of Beers may participate automatically, but I heard rumours that might change in the future.
You might have noticed there were only five Dutchies this year, while the team of Germany consisted of nineteen people. That’s because the size of your national team is determined by the amount of certified and therefore eligible beer sommeliers in your country relative to other countries as well as some other factors. That is why the Netherlands were represented by a team of three beer sommeliers in 2019 and five beer sommeliers in both 2022 and 2025. Because of our victory, we will host a future World Cup and as a host we will be granted five extra spots!
In 2019 the top three finalists and winners of the Dutch Cup were sent to the World Cup in Rimini with the fourth as reserve. In 2022 five of the six finalists got a spot in the national team with the sixth as reserve. But because of the covid period we had two! National Cups prior to this World Cup, which simultaneously meant it was harder to secure a spot in the World Cup team, but you also got more chances. Harder because this time a place in the finale was not enough. Only the winners and runner-ups of both competitions got a spot on the national team automatically with a fifth and a reserve determined another way. And very much to my surprise I came in second in 2024! which meant I got to represent the Netherlands in the World Cup this year, together with 2023 Winner Dennis Kort and 2023 runner-up Bas Schampers as well as 2024 winner Léon Rodenburg! Yoran Zonneveld joined us as the fifth representative with Martin Ter Harkel as our reserve.
A short history of Dutch Cups and World Cups
2009. Five years after Doemens (1895) officially began training beer sommeliers they held the first World Cup of Beer Sommeliers in Sonthofen, Germany. Karl Schiffner from Austria won, so two years later the second World Cup took place in Salzburg. From that moment on there was supposed to be a World Cup every two years, with National Cups in the years inbetween, meaning this year would have been the ninth World Cup if it weren’t for the chaotic period following 2020.
2009 was also an important year for the Netherlands, because that was the start of StiBON: the Dutch educational institution for beer sommeliers. StiBON offers an extensive three level course of which the last level takes place abroad after which you will be a Doemens certified international beer sommelier. There is also a fourth level, namely Master of Beer, which is on my educational wishlist for the future, but I will spare you the details.
To be eligible to participate in a national competition you need to be at least certified. There are similar educations to beer sommelier, cicerone and zytholoog to name a few, and I know in the past a zytholoog participated in the Dutch Cup, but generally the competition is Siebels/Doemens certified beer sommeliers only.
In 2018 the first Dutch Cup took place, organised by the NGBS, followed by the second in 2022 and a third and fourth in 2023 and 2024.
So next year will be the fifth Dutch Cup!
Prior to the World Cup we got a series of very intense extra trainings on beer styles, flavours and presentation by Maurus Wijman, Sanne Kouwenhoven and Ton van Opstal as our trainers and support. We even traveled to Groningen for one particularly gruesome workout, about which I might tell you more later on if I find the time to finish some more posts. Or I might not. I did make my own chaotic visuals again, which will probably serve no one but me.
Either way, september came around way too quickly, but we were ready to cross our swords (not going to beerify this proverb, because crossing our taste buds sounds too weird) in Gräfelfing and München with 88 other participants representing the top of their seventeen countries from all across the world.
Jens asked us beforehand what we thought a champion should be, to which I answered: A worthy beer sommelier champion is always happy to share the joy of beer.
München
I arrived in München on Thursday, a day early to acclimatise a bit, and give Paul a speed tour of München and Oktoberfest, which is happening right at this moment. On Friday we met the rest of the Dutch team in Gräfelfing and kicked off with a dinner at Wilder Hirsch. We called it an early night though, because on Saturday the competition would officially begin!
On a side note, I am done with clothing that never fit and a few years ago I started making my own clothing. So naturally I made my own green hop themed skirt for the World Cup. From scratch, without a pattern, because I am too chaotic to work with patterns. I also embroidered green hops on my brown t-shirt for the preliminaries.
The preliminaries
The competition was organised a bit differently than former years, and this time it took place over two days instead of one: On Saturday the preliminaries at Doemens, followed by the semi-finals and finals the day after at the Messe of München.
Also contrary to former World Cups we only got 30! minutes for each tasting round and 20 minutes for the single choice test this year, while still having to determine ten beer styles in the first round and ten flavours in the second out of a list of thirty each. A list you don’t know beforehand. So you need to prepare for basically everything and anything. And you might remember from earlier posts that that’s a lot.
So how do you train for the unknown? Of course if you are going to call yourself world champion of beer sommeliers you should know something about every beer style out there obviously, but that’s easier said than done.
Defining Beer Styles
Beer styles are more about expectation management than anything else really and are generally not strictly defined nor regulated, barring some exceptions. The beer styles and categories that are defined in some regulation or other, are mostly regulated on a national level (like in Dutch law you can find a rule on when you are allowed to call your beer non-alcoholic for example) or a continental level at most, but hardly ever worldwide. And even then we are talking about beer styles that for example are protected under European Union law by labels like traditional speciality guaranteed or protected designation of origin, which of course cannot be regulated in regions that son’t fall under European Union law.
The only world wide one which is generally adhered to which I can think of right now is probably the Authentic Trappist Product label for the category of Trappist Beers, which is issued and regulated by the private International Trappist Association (ITA). But even without devolving into a dissertation on the complexity of regulations and law, that’s not even a beer style. Trappist is more accurately defined as a category and trappist beers come in many different beer styles.
The several leading frameworks that are generally refered to by beer professionals nowadays have been developed for several reasons, but most commonly for very specific reasons like a specific beer competition. Because a beer judge in such a beer competition will generally not judge a beer on how tasty it is, but will judge its quality as well as how well it fits in the category for which it has been submitted. And to be able to judge the beers equally and impartially and make the judging process transparant, a well-defined description is needed. The BJCP framework is such a framework and one that is used frequently, but it is not the only one by far. For example Derek Walsh published a new book on beer styles this month, which I hope to receive next week and I cannot wait to read it!
All those frameworks have their similarities, but just as often some striking differences in opinion. And that’s not even taking into account that beer styles ánd frameworks evolve over time. But even within a single framework most beer styles span a range on each of their different features, ranges that seemingly overlap between styles sometimes. Still they are clearly different beer styles because of specific combinations of features and even though they differ over the several frameworks, there seems to be some general concensus on over a hundred different beer styles. Oh, did I mention we are talking about at least a hundred different beer styles described in each framework?
Because beer styles are more about expectation management than anything else really and are generally not strictly defined nor regulated, barring some exceptions. So how can you blindly determine which beer style a beer is if we don’t even have some commonly shared definition of said style? Luckily we do. Several! There are more than a few frameworks with beer style definitions out there. And a lot of them are used regularly by beer experts all over the world. So which one to use for this competition? All of them of course! Or more accurately, none of them in particular.
Which…. doesn’t give a lot to go on.
But even though you can argue about specifics, which you can read in the dissertation left, there still seems to be a general consensus and feel for the different beer styles among the beer sommeliers, beer judges, brewers and beer experts in general, consensus enough to make a blind tasting test a fair, yet challenging test of the tasting skills of beer sommeliers competing in a World Cup.
And believe me, challenging it is. As it should be.
Same goes for the flavours. The list of different flavours available is also much much longer than the list we get at the World Cup. And even though these flavours are chemically produced and calibrated and therefore should be less variable, we are still talking about beer here, a natural, living conduit, and therefore not laboratorium like consistent. Not to mention that most of these flavours are very subtle ánd that your ‘measuring instruments’ (your nose and mouth basically) are fluctuating in their performance as well as they are continuously influenced by external factors like perfumes and body odours or distracting sounds and internal factors like fatigue, a dry mouth or lingering food flavours.
But still, I might have mentioned something about a World Cup? It was never supposed to be easy.
Yet that Saturday morning, even despite the formidable competition, the major challenge awaiting us and tense, yet companionable atmosphere in the room, I felt quite, well, not confident per se, but prepared enough I guess. I mean, I still have so many books and exercises I wanted to read and do and so much more training ideas and all, and so much more to learn, so I would not have minded several more months of training at all.,But that was not the case, and at that moment I felt ready enough or at least as ready as I could be then for the challenge of the tasting itself. And I actually looked forward to it. Because for me that’s still the main reason I participate in the Cups; to test and challenge myself.
The rest of the team seemed to be in a similar state. Of course there was also some nervousness and anxiety, but the quiet camaraderie and mutual support as a team were there as well and I think we all felt up to the challenge.
And it showed! At the end of the first day, after a light dinner and some beers we did not hear who would be going to the finals the next day, but we did get to hear the correct beer styles and flavours of the preliminary tasting rounds to compare to our own answers. And wow, did we do well! Léon and Dennis in particular, since they both guessed ALL THE BEER STYLES, WHICH IS RIDICULOUS AND EXTRAORDINARY!
I can’t be 100% sure, since it is hard to find any information on the preliminaries of 2017 and before, but based on the results and the way they were announced in the previous two World Cups I am pretty confident when I say that this is probably unique and a first and a major accomplishment! I was also very content with my own score and made it to the top 23! A score I am very proud of and happy with! The whole Dutch team did really, really well, which was less of a surprise than last time, but was also not a given by far and still an impressive accomplishment. Just these scores in combination with the scores of last time would have been enough for the expectations for the Dutch team to be considerably higher the upcoming years which also means we have a lot more to prove next time. I am not sure of our country ranking, only the top three were announced, which were Austria, Brazil and Switzerland, but based on the scores we heard through the grapevine, there’s a pretty good chance our team was fourth!
The semi-finals
Either way there was a big chance Dennis would make it into the finale, and maybe even Léon as well. So Sunday morning there was some extra preparation just in case. Time went fast though, and before we knew it we were in the bus on our way to the Messe where at one o’clock the ten semi-finalists would be announced. During the opening we did not know the exact scores and ranking yet, so with not so quiet, slightly anxious anticipation we listened intently to the whole thanks talk and more until they finally made it to the announcement of the finalists and … DENNIS AND LÉON BOTH MADE IT INTO THE SEMI-FINALS!
After that announcement it was a blur of exitement and presentations and it basically was one big rush, so if you thought this post was chaotic up until this point, you have seen nothing yet!
So here is a picture of the awesomest participants as a palate cleanser before the finale rush.
The semi-finals were a head-to-head beer off similar to the semi-finals of 2019 in which every couple had to sensory describe the same unknown beer and beer style for a public vote into the finale. Five would go to the finaly by public vote, the sixth would be the best of the rest.
The semi-finals started with Dennis Kort (Netherlands) versus Domenico Cavallaro (Italy), followed by Rodrigo Sawamura (Brazil) versus Melanie Leutenegger (Germany), Julian Selinger (Austria) versus Cindy Elsenbast (Switzerland) and Reinhard Feigl (Austria) versus Léon Rodenburg (Netherlands). Last were Oliver Klamminger (Austria) and Lukas Porro (Austria). After each round the public was told which beer it was after which we as the public had to immediately vote for the best presentation. The beers they had to describe where Duvel Tripel Hop Citra, Rodenbach Grand Cru, Schlenkerla Rauchmärzen, Paulaner Salvator and Schneider Tap 5. This resulted in Dennis Kort, Rodrigo Sawamura, Cindy Elsenbast, Reinhard Feigl, Léon Rodenburg and Oliver Klamminger going through to the finale!
The finale
In the finale they all had to give a classic beer presentation about a randomly assigned beer in which they would be judged on:
- What they told about the beer itself, the brewery, the style and such;
- the sensory description: aroma, taste, sight, feel and more;
- beer pairings, not only food, but glass and other things as well;
- overall showing the added value of a trained and certified beer sommelier;
- overall presentation skills, which also served as a timer.
Because there was no time limit per se, the finalists would be judged on keeping the audience entertained and show of sense whether the public was still listening. Before the competition everyone was strongly encouraged to try to keep it around 5 minutes, but that turned out to be too short for all participants. As a member of the audience I didn’t mind, the presentations were generally engaging enough from the start to end. You can see them all for yourself on:
The judges for the finale were mainly world champions of former years, which meant a knowledgable jury, consisting of: Karl Schiffner (2009 champion) from Austria, Oliver Wesseloh (2013 champion) from Germany, Simonmattia Riva (2015 champion) from Italy, Stephan Hilbrandt (2017 champion) from Germany, Giuliano Genoni (2022 champion) from Switzerland and Nicola Buchner, managing director of the Association of Certified Beer Sommeliers and beer sommelier since 2012.
The assessments of the judges would and will remain a secret so below are my observations and mine only.
First in the finale was Rodrigo Sawamura who had to describe Orval and did his presentation in Portuguese. I thought he had a really strong start with a good stage presence and engaging presentation style. However he took his time before actually opening and tasting the beer itself.
Next up was Reinhard Feigl with Zundert 4. By then we, the public, cautiously deduced a certain theme in the beers, although it could have still been a coïncidence at that point. His presentation was pretty decent, nothing spectacular, nothing bad.
Third was Cindy Elsenbast with Westmalle Dubbel which cemented the idea that all the beers would be Trappists. I liked listening to her presentation, it was very pleasant and informative and she was definitely in my personal top 3.
Dennis was up next with the Rochefort 6. You can really tell he has a lot of experience with presentations for big crowds and his flamboyant personality is a perfect fit for the spotlight. He had also prepared an ingenious beer food pairing surprise with a suitcase full of different Dutch cookies fit for any and every beer style they could have thrown at him. All in all clearly the best of the contestants thus far.
Léon followed Dennis with La Trappe Tripel, probably the best beer he could have wished for and an an extra special one, because this beer in particular was instrumental in his personal beer voyage. Léon stayed true to himself and although his personality is much more reserved, his presentation was just as engaging in its own way which did not go unnoticed by the judges and the audience both offline and online. As someone in a shared online group said: “Léon did not just give a presentation, it was a masterclass”. And I wholly agree.
The last presentation was by Oliver Klamminger on Chimay Blauw which was also pretty decent and engaging and I liked the reference to the sound of the glasses even though that didn’t really work with these glasses of course. I had expected a bit more of him though, remembering the class he gave us in Obertrum in 2019. His third place was still very well deserved.
Which is spoiling the ending of my story maybe a little bit. Although of course I already started with the biggest spoiler of all, so is it still a spoiler if it was preceded by a bigger spoiler?
Anyway, all in all it didn’t take long for the jury to come to a final conclusion and they didn’t keep the audience too long in suspense. And let’s just say
IT WAS AWESOME AND WE WON! THE DUTCH TEAM WON! TWICE! GOLD AND SILVER! A WELL DESERVED VICTORY BY LÉON AND DENNIS! I LOVED BOTH YOUR PRESENTATIONS! CONGRATULATIONS!
Unfortunately this means Léon may never participate in neither the national cup nor world cup ever again, boohoo, but he will stay involved as a trainer.
Of course, after that all communication channels exploded and there were so many news outlets and more who wanted to know more. You can find several links below, but probably not all. So between having our pictures taken, answering questions of everyone and anyone and partying the rest of the evening, we did our best to keep everyone in the loop as far as possible ánd celebrate the victory at Schneider Weisse im Tal! And share a beer with other beer sommeliers from across the world, because that’s also one of the reasons I love to go, to meet up with all these wonderful people again!
That’s awesome! Congrats to Léon and Dennis on the win!