Does your beer have what it takes to be crowned best in Africa?

The African Beer Cup is the largest beer competition on the continent. Entries are welcomed from breweries small and large operating in any African country. Beers will be double-judged by a handpicked panel of qualified beer judges and industry experts from around the globe. Winners are announced at the annual BeerEx Africa, held in Cape Town.

How to Enter

The African Beer Cup is open to licenced, commercial breweries large and small.
Beer entered in the competition must have been brewed in Africa.

Beers will be judged according to the 2021 BJCP Guidelines. Please note that we have adapted the guidelines to make the competition more relevant to African Brewers. If you are entering a beer using African ingredients, please read our guidelines for African Grains Beer and Speciality African Beer.

In an ongoing bid to reflect the beer trends across Africa, we are adding a new category for the 2025 competition: Fruit Flavoured Beers. Read the full guidelines for this category here.

For the first time, we will also be adding mead to the competition. Honey based mead, tej and braggot will all be included in the 2025 competition. Read the BJCP mead guidelines here.

Before completing the entry form, please familiarise yourself with the guidelines and be sure to enter your beer in the correct category. Beers will be judged to the guidelines of the category in which they are entered. If you have any questions or are not sure which category to use, please contact us.

If you're entering a lager and are not sure which category it best fits into, check out our handy Infographic.

Entry fees

1 – 2 beers: ZAR 990

3 – 9 beers: ZAR 925

10 or more beers: ZAR 880

Entry fees do not include shipping costs.

To enter, complete the form here and make payment online. Once registered, you will receive a document with all the details on how to ship your beers to us.

Every beer is judged twice by a hand-picked team of industry experts

The judging panels will be made up of BJCP-qualified judges and industry experts. Beers will be judged using the 2021 BJCP guidelines. Although BJCP judging is designed to remove subjectivity, it is not a fool-proof way to judge. Sometimes judges have an off day, are unfamiliar with a style or are influenced by someone else on their panel. To try and remove this risk, every beer in the African Beer Cup will be judged twice, by two different panels. Scores will then be compared and an average taken. Should there be a difference of more than seven points between the two sets of scores, a third panel will be called upon to re-evaluate and an overall average of the three scores will determine the final score.

If you are interested in judging at the African Beer Cup, please get in touch detailing your judging, sensory and/or brewing experience.

Meet the Team

The African Beer Cup was born out of a love for beer and a desire to nurture a stronger beer culture across the African continent. Drawing on experience judging in numerous other competitions both local and international, the organisers of the African Beer Cup aim to offer a fair and in-depth judging process, as well as detailed, considered feedback for brewers.

Lucy Corne

Co-founder and Competition Director

Lucy is a widely published beer writer, an Advanced Cicerone® and experienced beer judge having judged at the World Beer Cup, European Beer Star, Brussels Beer Challenge, Concurso Brasileiro de Cervejas and numerous South African competitions.

Shawn Duthie

Co-founder

Brewer and former president of the Southyeasters Homebrewers Club, Shawn judged his first competition in 2009 in South Korea. He has been instrumental in setting up BJCP competitions and judging exams in Cape Town.

Does your beer have what it takes to be crowned best in Africa?

How to Enter