The 10th Annual Bell’s Homebrew Competition Kick-off and Expo will be held this year on Sept. 14 at our Eccentric Café in downtown Kalamazoo.

Things to keep in mind if you decide to enter this year's 10th annual homebrew competition:

• Homebrewers should bring a sanitized vessel with them to transport their wort home. Buckets, carboys (please be extra careful handling glass carboys) and cornelius kegs are the most common vessels. You can leave them in your vehicle until it’s time to pick up your wort, but again, please sanitize your vessel prior to your pick-up time to help us make sure everyone gets their wort.
• New this year... sign up for a specialty homebrew tour and be one of the first to receive wort. Registration for the tour will open on August 14th at 9am. Limited spots available. Sign up here!
• Make sure to get there early, as supplies will be limited. Signing up early (starts at 11 a.m.) will help guarantee wort. We will start distributing wort at 1 p.m.
• You can send someone else to pick up your wort. We aren’t concerned with who takes it, just who turns in bottles to be judged in October.
• We do ask that you don’t bring friends or relatives who don’t brew, just so you can have an extra 5+ gallons of wort. We are relying on the goodwill of homebrewers to help each other out and share the wealth. Please help us make sure all who want to compete are able.
• You can add whatever you like to your recipe/submission. However, if your entry is chosen as the winner, we will have to be able to figure out a way to make your beer on a much larger scale. So please, take good, detailed notes of everything you do to the wort.
• We won’t know exactly how much we will end up with until the wort is made, but last year we were able to give 5 gallons of wort to nearly 200 homebrewers. We hope to be in that ballpark again this year, but things happen during wort transfers that can affect that number. We recommend arriving early to sign up and make sure you get your wort.
• Competition entries (four 12 oz. bottles) are due to the Bell’s General Store by 7 p.m., Sunday, October 27.

For more on this year's competition, go here.