Salvador Marimon receives the Steve Huxley Award at the Barcelona Beer Challenge

The 7th edition of the Barcelona Beer Challenge, the beer competition linked to the Barcelona Beer Festival, has awarded the Steve Huxley Prize to Salvador Marimon, founder of Install Beer. The award recognizes an entire career devoted to the beer sector. Marimon has helped anchor craft beer in Spain as a technical service provider for microbreweries. In previous years, the trophy has gone to figures such as Andrew Dougall (Cervezas Dougall’s), Carlos Rodríguez (Ales Agullons) and Albert Barrachina (Art Cervesers).

As for the best beers in the competition, Basqueland Brewing once again took top honors for the second year in a row with the award for best craft brewery of the year. Based in the town of Hernani (Basque Country), it has achieved no fewer than two golds, five silvers and one bronze. A total of eight medals to reach the top of the podium. For its part, Italian brewery Birrificio Liquida won the award for Best New Brewery 2022, the trophy for the best newly created brewery. It is not the first Italian brewery to be crowned the “rookie” of the Spanish competition, after Torre Mozza won it last year.

There is also room to highlight technical advances, hence the innovation award that went to Cervesa Màger. The Catalan brewery has brewed a beer using the “vi bullit” technique, an almost lost ancestral method that was used to make wine. The clever idea is to heat the wort in a bain-marie over low heat to evaporate up to a third of the water and concentrate the sugars. The result? A malty, acidic beer with body and legs in the glass. It’s like a wine, also in terms of its alcohol content.

Likewise, the Barcelona Beer Challenge has created an award for consistency. Under the name Platinum Medals, this distinction is exclusive to beers that have reached the podium at least five times in recent editions. These have been Imperial Red IPA by Arriaca (Guadalajara), Fosca by Sullérica (Mallorca) and Carbonera by San Jordi (Catalonia).

In numbers, the competition featured 60 professional judges, 15 of them international, to evaluate up to 1,315 beers, spread across 64 categories and coming from 215 breweries worldwide, although the organizers note that Spain and Italy predominated over other nationalities. This edition of the competition, held at the Craft Beer Cluster in Lliçà d’Amunt, attracted the highest number of participants since the event began. After the jury’s decision, the growing standard of the national sector is clear.