Craft beer lovers who lived in the greater Chicago area back in the early 20-teens are likely familiar with the annual event called Beer Hoptacular. It was a beer festival that was rather itinerant for much of its relatively short existence, moving from one venue to another, from one year to another, as properties and short-term leases and legal licensing would allow.

One of the festival features that remained a constant, however, was quite popular among the local homebrew clubs. Each year, Beer Hoptacular would host a homebrew challenge designed to get homebrew clubs in the tri-state area (Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin) involved in the fest. The hook was that each club had to brew a beer using only the malts provided by Beer Hoptacular.

Capitalizing on my connections with the local Country Malt Group warehouse, who donated all the grain, I arranged to pick up and ship out enough malt to supply all of the participating clubs with the grain they would need to brew their beer entry; hops, yeast and any additional non-malt ingredients were the individual club’s responsibility.

Also, making the most of my relationships with local beer judges, I assembled a crack team of ale adjudicators for competition day. First, second, and third place winners were publicly announced during the festival and a great time was had by all.

Sadly, that beer festival and its homebrew challenge are no more. But if the concept of brewing a beer style from the same basic ingredients as your fellow homebrew contestants sounds like a true test of your homebrewing proficiency, then read on!

The word “best” in this article’s headline is not only used as a superlative adjective meaning most excellent or desirable — but more significantly, it’s the name of a renowned German maltster. It’s not a coincidence that BestMalz is the host of this global competition. 

Beginning in 2015, BestMalz has been inviting homebrewers and commercial brewers from around the world to enter their annual BestBrewChallenge competition. In fact, that inaugural year their plan was to set the Guinness World Record for the world’s largest simultaneous collaboration brew — including both homebrewers and commercial breweries — with all participants in all different countries and time zones brewing their entries at the same time. The date was set for April 23, 2015, to start the countdown to the 500^th anniversary of the German Beer Purity Law — the Reinheitsgebot.

For the 10^th anniversary of the BestBrewChallenge in 2025, the slogan was “International brewing artistry at the highest level,” and the competition once again demonstrated the diversity and creativity of the international brewing scene. Though official statistics on the percent of homebrewers versus commercial brewers participating are not kept by BestMalz, it is estimated that homebrewers made up about 80% of the more than 100 participants in the 2025 competition, while commercial brewers made up the remaining 20%.

“The BestBrewChallenge is a globally unique competition in which all participants brew at the same time using the same ingredients — a real live experiment in the art of brewing,” said Dr. Axel Göhler, whose company organizes the challenge every year. 

Though the targeted beer style changes each year, in 2025 the focus of the competition was on oatmeal stout, a complex beer style known for its velvety texture, roasted aromas, and subtle notes of coffee and dark chocolate. The 2025 challenge was to brew an oatmeal stout using Best Oat Malt. Also suggested for use in the recipe were Best Chocolate Malt, Best Black Malt, and Best Black Malt Extra. Hop varieties were not stipulated for this style, while the recommended yeast was AEB Fermoale AY3. As one might expect with a German brewing competition, all beers must comply with the Reinheitsgebot, which only allows the inclusion of grain, hops, yeast, and water, with no additives or preservatives used in the production of the beer. 

The spotlighted malt each year is chosen by BestMalz, based mostly on current brewing trends, but also on what hasn’t already been used in past years. Previous recent beer styles chosen include helles lager, altbier, light German wheat beer, festbier, and Vienna lager; most of which, not surprisingly, seem to skew towards cold fermentations.

So, ultimately, the real challenge isn’t simply brewing the stipulated beer style with the required malts; it’s brewing that particular beer better than every other brewer who is jumping from the same starting block.

2025 BestBrewChallenge

This past year, 112 entrants from 12 countries took up the challenge of creating and submitting an oatmeal stout using these identical base malts. The beers were evaluated based on taste, style consistency, and color, using the Beer Judge Certification Program Beer Style Guidelines as a reference. In addition to taste and adherence to style, the judges also focused on creativity, balance, and craftsmanship. 

The judge panel consisted entirely of trained beer sommeliers. Training to become a beer sommelier is often completed at the Doemens Academy in Germany (which is also affiliated with the Siebel Institute, now headquartered in Montreal, Canada). In the past, BestMalz employees were also involved as tasters, but in 2021 it was decided to fill the jury entirely with external members. 

What made the judging especially interesting is that, despite using the same base ingredients, the flavor profiles ranged from dry and bitter to creamy and full-bodied. Each beer told its own story — influenced by regional brewing techniques, water profiles, and the personal signature of each brewer. This impressive variety in interpretation showcased just how multifaceted a single beer style can be, even when brewed using (mostly) the same ingredients.

So, who were the winners? Interestingly, two of the top three front-runners were from Lithuania, with the other hailing from the Czech Republic. Taking top honors, was Lithuanian Tomas Sirtautas; his Out for Delivery Oatmeal Stout was deemed best-of-show.

Tomas is no stranger to winning the BestBrewChallenge. His light German wheat beer also took first place in 2021, and that’s the recipe he chose to share for this article (found on page 50). That’s right, with over 100 entrants brewing nearly identical recipes, the same winner has been chosen twice in the past five years. Given the uniqueness of such a feat, we thought it was worth talking with Tomas to learn more about his setup and secrets for success.

Keys to Tomas’ success

Tomas calls his homebrewery Relaxed Man Brewery. “It doesn’t mean anything special,” he said, “The competition required a brewery name and that’s what I came up with.” Perhaps that’s simply his winning approach towards brewing beer at home; after all, it does have that certain ring to it (“Relax. Don’t Worry . . .”).

Tomas has been brewing since 2013, beginning back when he used to live in the U.K. His path into homebrewing began with extract brewing, before quickly moving to all-grain. His original brew system was a 30-L (8-gallon) Grainfather all-in-one system before upgrading to a 3-tier system. 

Tomas eventually felt comfortable enough to engineer his own self-made 10.5-gallon (40-L) system, which includes a boil kettle, mash tun, and a modified Heat Exchange Recirculating Mash System (HERMS) Grainfather sparge water heater (he also uses it for wort recirculation through a self-installed heat exchanger), Nordic Tec 40 plate heat exchanger, and two magnetic pumps, pictured on this page. Regarding fermentation, he uses a temperature-controlled, environment-modified refrigerator.

The perfect water for his beers begins by reverse osmosis filtration of his local water, which he then builds up to the required water profile for the particular beer style by adding minerals. He adjusts mash pH — if necessary — either with minerals or with phosphoric acid, or both combined. When brewing high-gravity beers, he oxygenates the wort with pure oxygen. 

He used to bottle all his beer, but now, in his Relaxed Man mode, he uses the less time-consuming method of kegging his beer.

Sounds like pretty normal, yet advanced, brewing techniques. So, how did Tomas make his beers stand out? Here are a few bullet points for successful brewing, according to Tomas:

• Use only the best and freshest quality ingredients you can get.

• Research and then design recipes.

• Use specific water chemistry profile for particular beer styles.

• Perfect sanitation.

• Focus on hitting your mash pH.

• Fast wort cooling.

• Pitch an adequate amount of healthy yeast and oxygenate your wort.

• Always ferment in a temperature-controlled environment.

As the winner of the BestBrewChallenge, Tomas was well-compensated for his time, effort, and expense. Last September, he traveled to Germany for a tour of the malting plant in Wallertheim (near Mainz) and to brew a beer on the company’s brewing system at its headquarters in Heidelberg. “I enjoyed brewing at BestMalz very much; the staff was very friendly. I wish I had the equipment they do,” said Tomas. “It’s a beautiful system.”

Travel and accommodation expenses are provided not only for the brewer, but a companion as well. And the beer brewed at BestMalz is ultimately served at the Drinktec Fair in Munich (Drinktec is the world’s leading trade fair for the beverage and liquid food industry).

Enter Your Own

While the opportunity to enter the 2026 competition has passed, for those interested in competing against Tomas and others, let’s quickly look  further at this unique competition. According to the rules, the calendar window for mashing in is a very short three days (in 2025, for instance, it was March 28–30). Here are some of the other rules:

Every entry must be accompanied by a completed Documentation Sheet, which is found on the BestBeerChallenge website.

Every contestant must submit at least three liters of their beer (rounded up, this would be about nine 12-ounce bottles).

Entries must be shipped to the BestMalz location in Heidelberg, Germany.

All entries must be brewed to comply with the Reinheitsgebot.

There is no fee to enter this competition; however, shipping the equivalent of three liters of beer to Germany will surely set you back a few bucks. This is probably why there have been relatively few North American competitors over the past decade.

So, where did all the entries emanate from this past year? Not surprisingly, most of them were from Germany, but the second most were submitted from Lithuania. Other countries involved included Norway, Sweden, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Czech Republic, Italy, Switzerland, Slovakia, Netherlands, and Australia, 

No Americans submitted entries in 2025, but several have participated in past challenges. In fact, an American brewer took third place in the very first BestBrewChallenge back in 2015, and the most recent American to medal was in 2023. The year with the highest participation from the U.S. was 2022, with 25 registered entries.

Registration for the 2026 BestBrewChallenge started in February and all (Dark Wheat Beer) entries would have had to be brewed long before you read this. But it’s never too early to start dreaming about brewing your best beer in Germany in 2027.

Further Reading …

• What separates the best homebrewers from the average ones may not be as much as you think. Two Ninkasi Award winners share their secrets to brew great beer.

• Three award-winning brewers share advice on how to stand out and win homebrew competitions.