Thank you for your interest in the Dont Be Afraid of the Dark Homebrew Competition organized by Anglian Craft Brewers.

You only need to register your information once and can return to this site to enter more brews or edit the brews you've entered. You can even pay your entry fees online if you wish.

Thanks and Good Luck To All Who Entered the Dont Be Afraid of the Dark Homebrew Competition!

There are 120 registered entries and 100 registered participants, judges, and stewards.

As of 15:46, GMT, there are 0 received and processed entries (this number will update as entries are picked up from drop-off locations and organized for judging).

Rules

The ACB Dont Be Afraid of the Dark homebrew competition is a BJCP sanctioned competition open to competitors aged 18 or over, where your homebrewed beers are assessed by qualified judges against current style guidelines.

This competition will focus on "Dark" beer styles....effectively those styles where the colour range starts or extends to beyond 40 EBC. For styles where the colour range includes both paler and darker variants (e.g. dopplebock) we would prefer that entries are focused towards the darker end of the scale.

You can use this site to register for the competition, pay your entry fees and submit details of your beers. Once registered you can log in anytime to enter additional brews, or edit details of those you've already entered up until the cut-off times/dates.

Detailed and constructive feedback by qualified or experienced judges is a key goal of our event. Judges will evaluate and score each entry. Score sheets and written feedback will be provided on each entry. 

Beers will be assessed against the 2021 BJCP Style Guidelines available via this link https://www.bjcp.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/2021_Guidelines_Beer_1.25.pdf

Prizes will be awarded to the 1st, 2nd and 3rd placed beers in each category. The Best of Show beer will be determined by a Best of Show panel based on a second judging of a fresh bottle of the winning beer from each table.

The competition organizers reserve the right to combine styles for judging and to restructure awards as needed depending upon the quantity and quality of entries. All possible effort will be made to combine similar styles. All brews in combined categories will be judged according to the style they were originally entered in.The competition organizers are not responsible for mis-categorized entries. 

Eligibility

This competition is open to any amateur homebrewer, worldwide, however shipping of larger prizes, outside of the UK, will be at the competition organisers discretion. All entries must be handcrafted products, containing ingredients available to the general public, and made using private equipment by hobbyist brewers at home. Those made by professional brewers, or in commercial establishments, including brew-on-premise establishments, are not eligible. 

Competition Organizers, staff, judges and stewards may enter the competition. Measures are in place to ensure fair, anonymous, judging. Judges and stewards will not be assigned to categories that they have entered. 

Where

Briarbank Brewing Company, 70 Fore Street, ipswich. IP4 1LB
What3Words: //////lace.zebra.motion

When

Judging commences - approx. 10am Saturday 22nd November 2025
Awards Ceremony - approx. 6pm

RESULTS LIVE STREAM LINK - You Tube Link (TBA)

Important Deadlines

Register online and pay for all entries by 31st October 2025 11:59 PM
Finalise your entries by 31st October 2025 11:59 PM
Delivery of entries by Friday 14 th November 2024 05:00 PM

Entry Cost 
Entry fee is £10 for the first entry. 2nd entries may be made available at a later date for a discounted cost.

Judging Sessions

Saturday Morning
Saturday 22 November, 2025 10:15, GMT

Saturday Afternoon
Saturday 22 November, 2025 13:30, GMT

Competition Officials

You can send an email to any of the following individuals via Contact.

• Nick Davis — Competition Organiser
• James Pettifor — Competition Organiser
• Tony Tilbury — Competition Staff

Sponsors

Anglian Craft Brewers is proud to have the following sponsors for the Dont Be Afraid of the Dark Homebrew Competition.

Crisp Malt

 

We were founded when two brothers, Fred & George Smith, purchased a farm and flour mill at Little Ryburgh in Norfolk in 1850. With the arrival of the railway through Norfolk and with access to excellent malting barley, they decided to enter into malting in 1870 and established the Great Ryburgh maltings. In time it was the largest floor maltings in the world and they sent malt all over the world from their quayside on the Norfolk coast at Well-Next-The-Sea. In 1970, John Crisp, an 8th generation maltster whose family had been involved in the industry since the 18th century, bought into the company and the name changed to what we know today. John Crisp continued to grow the business through strong contracts with UK and overseas brewers and expanded into Scotland in 1979 when they built our Portgordon maltings in Speyside. John’s son William established a brewing wholesale company in the USA to cater to the burgeoning craft scene in the early 90s. This eventually became BSG and was purchased by Rahr Malt. BSG are still our US distributor to this day. In 2005, the company was bought by a small group of investors led by our Chief Executive David Thompson of the Wolverhampton & Dudley brewing family; they expanded the group further with the addition of malting sites in Germany and Poland, making Crisp Malt the 10th largest malting company in the world. We also have sister businesses in the wider group, including MFP and EDME, who make ingredients for the baking industry. Then in 2023, Richardson International Limited successfully acquired Crisp Malt, welcoming all our employees into its wider group of companies across Canada, the US, and Europe. Given the growing global demand for malting barley, predominantly driven by the brewing and distilling industries, Richardson’s proven track record of strategic expansion and investment positions Crisp Malt to meet increasing requirements for our international customer base.

French & Jupps

 

French & Jupps was established in 1689 by the Jupp family, making us one of the United Kingdom’s oldest manufacturing businesses. Today, we are still proudly owned by the Jupp family, and are proud to be Great Britain’s oldest maltster, having commenced our malting operations in 1810 at Kew Bridge, London

The Malt Miller

 

The Malt Miller was established in 2010 by Rob Neale, driven by his discovery of the joy of homebrewing beer. Rob’s passion for brewing the best beer at home and sourcing the finest ingredients directly from suppliers led to the founding of the business. This passion for freshness and high-quality ingredients, along with a commitment to serving the creative and enthusiastic homebrewing community, are the cornerstones of the business today. We continuously seek out the best items to stock, provide insightful and educational content, and ensure timely delivery of orders. As a business that prioritises people—both customers and team members—we want to give you a little insight into the awesome people behind each and every order you place. Be sure to check out our awesome YouTube Channel where the team from The Malt Miller take you though a vast amount of information from how to videos, brewing insights, equipment reviews and collaborations with some of the UK’s finest Craft Breweries.

CrossMyLoofBrew

 

INKBIRD

 

INKBIRD is a smart IoT technology company and its business was established in 2010. As a high-tech company, INKBIRD has been devoting itself to offering its worldwide users excellent smart home living products, since the date it was established. Inspired by the history of quill-pen and the spirit of The Wright brothers’ making the world's first motor-operated airplane successfully happened, the founders of INKBIRD named the brand with the word INK which is used for writing with the quill-pen and the word BIRD which is the prototype and the inspiration of human being’s flying tools to encourage the development and continuity of the company as well as to motivate their solid steps of chasing innovation and freedom. Up to now, the brand INKBIRD has covered several categories because of its increasing influence in the market, to name but a few: (a) Home-made DIY products with covering the smart controllers and the smart sensors such as smart temperature controllers and smart humidity controllers; (b) Outdoor smart cooking products such as BBQ thermometers and smoker thermometers; (c) Indoor smart cooking products such as Sous Vide Cookers; (d) Smart planting and gardening products such as the CO2 controllers and irrigation controllers; As its products are more and more popular among the increasing user groups and in order to server its markets and users more efficiently, INKBIRD has build the B2B and B2C business systems. Depending on its sophisticated R&D and quality-control abilities, INKBIRD has built an improved and effective global marketing and sales network to serve countless users and families from all over the world via the current major e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, eBay, AliExpress, Alibaba.com and our own independent e-commerce platform. Several of its products have been keeping standing on the top of the bestseller lists of the above e-commerce platforms until now. Especially, most of users take its smart temperature controllers as the GAME CHANGER in the home-used temperature controllers because of their outstanding performance. Just as the service spirit delivered by its brand slogan for smart home living, INKBIRD will be always devoting itself to the smart IoT industry to offering the worldwide users more excellent products.

Charles Faram

 

We’ve been hop suppliers for over 160 years, so we’ve got a lot of hop history. Charles Faram Hop Merchants and Factors has one of the largest range of hop varieties available from stock in our temperature-controlled hop storage warehouses in nitrogen-flushed leaf hops, Type 90 (T90) pellets and Type 45 (T45) pellets. Varieties come from the UK, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Poland, Slovenia, New Zealand and the USA. Faram’s provides an artist’s palette of flavours to create every type and style of beer from the traditional varieties to exciting new developmental varieties from Faram’s own breeding and development programme. Our own varieties include Archer®, Emperor®, Godiva™, Harlequin®, Jester®, Most™, Mystic™, Olicana® and Opus®.