Léon Rodenburg, beer brewer in Almkerk, has won third place at the World Cup for beer sommeliers in the ‘beer mecca’ Munich on Sunday. And that’s a major achievement, because never before has a Dutchman managed to get on the podium. “For me it feels like gold, I’m very happy!”
Together with three other Brabant beer connoisseurs – Dennis Kort from Eindhoven, Bas Schampers from Breda and Yoran Zonneveld from Best – Léon traveled to Germany. What is it all about at such a World Cup? Taste, taste, taste.
Léon works in Almkerk at the De Magistraat brewery, and according to him this gives him an advantage over the other participants. “I make it myself and can follow the different stages of the fermentation process, which gives me a technical view of beer. I think that’s where my strength lies.”
“I had prepared for months, but still the doubt struck.”
Still, he didn’t really feel good about his performance at first. “I had been preparing for months, but the doubt really set in when I walked out,” he says.
“It was very tough,” said Dennis, who finished fifteenth. “Much more difficult than previous years. There was less liquid in the tasting glasses, which made it really difficult for me to recognize flavors and find out what was wrong with the beer.”
The competition started on Sunday morning at 9 am, when the participants were all given ten glasses of beer to taste. This is followed by a multiple choice test, after which ten more small cups of beer are rolled over the tongue. “Chemical flavorings had been added to that beer and then we had to know which deviation was in the beer,” says the winning sommelier.
“Isoamyl acetate, for example, which smells like banana,” says Léon. “In a Belgian triple that is really the case, but if it is in another beer, then it is an anomaly, which means that something went wrong during the fermentation because the tank was not cleaned properly, for example.”
“Sometimes very unpleasant smells pass by, such as yogurt or baby vomit.”
Sometimes really nasty smells pass by, Léon knows. “Like yogurt or baby vomit. And then you start wondering what happened to that beer.”
In the final, he had to give a presentation about a beer that he chose at random from a lottery ticket. “I had to taste it on the spot and then immediately put all my skills into it. You tell the story of the beer, of the brewery, of the flavors and aromas that are released. You have five minutes to do that.”
“By accident I pulled a Samuel Smith beer out of the fridge.”
“By accident I had taken a beer from the fridge two nights before that turned out to be beer,” he says with a laugh. “That was my luck, because I had never drunk it before.” With his presentation of the Samuel Smith Imperial Stout, a rich beer with a deep chocolate brown colour, Léon took third place in the World Cup.
He managed to beat other beer sommeliers with no less than 25 years of experience. And you can drink that. The champion fills his cup to the brim. “I am very proud that I managed to box this.”
The other two Brabant participants finished in 29th and 49th place. A total of 82 beer connoisseurs from 18 different countries took part.
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