The Front Range Homebrew Circuit (FRC) is designed to promote friendly competition between Colorado and Wyoming clubs and between individual homebrewers.
FRC allows homebrewers to compete with each other by entering Front Range homebrew competitions and collecting medals at these competitions.
The Front Range, for purposes of which competitions are included, is the corridor of cities from Pueblo, CO through Cheyenne, WY, within 20 miles east or west of I-25.
Entrants must be residents of Colorado or Wyoming, and must be a member of a Colorado or Wyoming homebrew club.
Each year FRC will track points for all member competitions and individual brewers and award a FRC Homebrewer Of The Year and a FRC Homebrew Club Of The Year.
See current individual and club standings
Current (2026) competitions included in FRC (and the competition's representative):
- 8 Seconds Of Froth (Fred Hirsch)
- Biere de Rock (Christopher Burgess)
- Colorado State Fair (Trish Fernandez)
- Feast Of Saint Arnold Homebrew (Mike Scott)
- Liquid Poetry Slam (Donald Schneider)
- Orpheus Meadfest Homebrew (Andrew Adams)
- Peak To Peak Pro/Am (Weston Wright)
- Peterson Homebrew Competition (Dave Wilcox)
- Reggale Dredhop (Trevor Johnson)
- Rocky Mountain Homebrew Challenge (Ray Schultz)
- Sweetheart's Revenge (Blake Ernst)
To update the representative for a Competition, please email
Nelson from an official
competition email address (e.g., Organizer@CompetitionName.com). Please include email and phone number (which are used only for internal FRC communications).
Composition and Purpose of the FRC Board
- The FRC board shall be comprised of one individual per FRC-tracked competition, plus one or more Administrator positions. Initially there is an "IT Manager"
Administrator position (currently Nelson Crowle). Administrator positions may be added by a 2/3 majority vote of the current board members.
- The purpose of the FRC Board is to establish the rules under which the circuit will operate and to resolve any FRC-related disputes among individuals or clubs.
- All board decisions, except those noted elsewhere, will require a simple majority of active board members to pass.
- Votes may be called at a physical meeting of the board as long as a two thirds quorum (or authenticated proxies) of the available votes are present.
- Until eligible voting competition organizers begin participating in FRC decisions,
proposals by members will not need a full membership vote to pass, but will be determined by participating members on the Front Range Circuit Facebook group.
Common Rules
In addition to the rules outlined above, it is desirable that there be certain rules common to all FRC member competitions.
- Brewers shall be limited to two entries per sub-category for all non-Specialty categories.
Brewers shall be limited to two entries per sub-sub-category for Historical and Specialty IPA categories (i.e., max 2 Lichtenheiner, max 2 Red IPA) except for
the "Other Historical" and "Other Specialty IPA" for which no limit is imposed by FRC.
For Specialty categories, there is no limit imposed by FRC, but individual competitions may impose their own limits if they choose.
Circuit Calendar
- The circuit calendar will align with the calendar year. Each circuit year will start January 1 and end December 31.
- The awarding of Front Range Homebrewer Of The Year and Front Range Homebrew Club Of The Year will typically occur at the last FRC-qualified competition of the year, or by electronic announcement.
Disciplinary Actions
- While it is assumed that all clubs and individuals will compete in the spirit of openness and fairness, there always exists the possibility for abuse.
While it is hoped that these remedies will never be required, it is better to define them now rather than try to retrofit them if an issue does occur.
- Any disciplinary action will require a two thirds vote of the full Circuit Board. Disciplinary actions can range from removal of points, disqualification
of individuals or clubs for a circuit season, or removal of a competition, club, or individual from circuit eligibility. Actions should be commiserate with
the severity of the offense.
Questions currently being considered by the board
- What sort of awards/trophies/prizes? How are they funded?
- What additional expenses are there (domain name and hosting, for example), and how are they funded?
- Is FRC based only on recordkeeping of data from eligible competitions, or should it have it's own end-of-year competition where HOTY AND HCOTY are announced?
Any competition which meets the following criteria will be considered an eligible competition for circuit points.
- The competition must be open to all Colorado and Wyoming homebrewers. Club-Only-Competitions are not eligible.
- The competition must be conducted in accordance with BJCP competition guidelines.
- The competition must be registered with BJCP and be included on the BJCP Competition calendar.
- The competition must provide a means to access the pertinent data from Reggie, BCOEM, or other online registration software.
- The competition must accept only Homebrew entries which must be produced on homebrew equipment.
- Competitions may be added or removed only by a decision from the FRC Board. Competitions should not be added after January 1 of a year although
competitions may be removed if they violate eligibility rules. Competitions should have at least a year of history before being added to FRC.
- Competitions must treat all entrants equally relating to entry rules and relating to category awards and BOS awards.
Examples of ineligible competitions (with the reason):
- Chili Pepper Extravaganza - all entries must be made with chili peppers
- El Paso County Fair - requires entrant to be a resident of El Paso County
