IBRU Fantasy Draught Info

The 2026 IBRU Fantasy Draught Homebrew Competition:  The Ultimate Challenge!

Do you have what it takes to compete in the IBRU Fantasy Draught for a chance at ribbons, prize money and brewing glory?

The Fantasy Draught competition (aka "the Draught") is a unique and challenging competition held annually since 2023 at the IBRU Summer Cookout.  The Draught tests each brewer's creativity, resourcefulness, recipe creation skills, and brewing acumen in a competition with other club homebrewers.

Similarly to a fantasy sports draft, the brewers participate in a live draft where they select their ingredients to fill recipe slots from an ever dwindling list of pre-determined items, and then brew their beer using only the ingredients they have drafted.

Details

• This is an IBRU Member competition

• One entry per brewer

• The winning beers will be selected during the IBRU Summer Cookout using the traditional (and casual) "bring a keg/taste all the brews/drink as much as you like/vote with bottle caps" method.

• Entrance Fee

  • A fee of $20 per brewer is collected to help get firm commitments from participants, which is necessary for a successful competition.

  • 100% of collected fees go directly into the prize purse.

• Prizes

  • IBRU will providing 1st, 2nd and 3rd place ribbons, and donate $100 in prize money.

  • This $100 plus the entrance fees collected by the participants will create the Prize Purse.

• Prize Purse payout

  • 1st place - 45% of prize purse

  • 2nd place - 25%

  • 3rd place - 15%

  • 4th place - 10% 

  • 5th place - 5%

  • An example of a ten entry Prize Purse

    • $200 in collected entrance fees + $100 in donated prize money = $300

    • 1st place = $135

    • 2nd place = $75

    • 3rd place = $45

    • 4th place = $30

    • 5th place = $15

Important Dates

• Ingredient List Available - 4/16 (Th)

• Commitment Date (fees due) - 4/30 (Th)

• Draft Order Determination - 5/7 (Th)

• Draft Date - 5/13 (W) or 5/14 (Th) at Art's

• Fantasy Draught @ the IBRU Summer Cookout - 8/1 (Sa)

Draft Rules

• This is an in-person event (virtual options can be discussed but everyone must be able to draft at the same time).

• An initial randomized draft order will be determined and announced prior to draft.

• When a brewer selects an ingredient they gain the right to use that ingredient.

• Once drafted, that item is no longer available to be selected by anyone else.  It is "off the board".

• The Draught uses what's called a “snake" order to determine the order in which the brewers are able to make their selections.

  • Once the initial randomized draft order is established each brewer will select one ingredient when their turn comes up.  That order reverses (snakes) back and forth for each subsequent round.

  • There are eight recipe slots per brewer, so there will be eight rounds.

  • So, if there are ten brewers, the first round draft order would be 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10.  The second round draft order would be 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1, and back and forth for a total of eight rounds.

• Each brewer must finish the draft with an item in each recipe slot.

• Each brewer will receive a Draught Pick sheet that can be used to help people determine which items are still available during the draft.  It is the responsibility of the brewer to manage this process.

• Draught Picks, once announced by the brewer, may not be reversed unless the pick is invalid for some reason.  You can't change your mind once a selection has been made.

• It is the responsibility of the brewer to obtain the ingredients for their recipe; IBRU is not supplying any ingredients.

Recipe Slots

• Each recipe is comprised of eight recipe slots made up of the following five ingredient categories:

  • Base Malt (1 slot)

  • Yeast (1 slot)

  • Hops (2 slots)

  • Specialty Grain (1 slot)

  • Miscellaneous Slot (3 slots available for any available hop, specialty grain or adjunct).

• Each brewer is limited to a single Base Malt and a single Yeast selection.

• Miscellaneous Slots may be filled with any ingredient from the list (except a base malt or yeast).

• There will be multiple hops and specialty malts available.

• There are a very limited amount of "unique items" that can be selected, such as a random item (based on a die role) or "no ingredient required" items.

• Anyone planning an extract brew will need to draught accordingly.

• All drafted items must be included in the recipe and the brew, so be sure not to draft anything you can't source.

Brew Rules

• Please Observe Confidentiality - absolutely no chatter about your beer, beer name, ingredients or and other brew details.  And please do not divulge the ingredients drafted by anyone else at the Draught, either.

• ONLY ingredients selected during the Draught may be used.

• EVERY ingredient selected during the Draught must be used; no more, no less.

• The brewer can use as much of any drafted ingredient as desired.

• Any brand of ingredient can be used as desired as long as the ingredient is equivalent to the ingredient drafted.

• Final recipes may be collected, not as a check on the brewers, but as a resource to other brewers who may want to replicate or tweak the recipes.

• Any style of beer is fine with the exception of sour, brett, or unintentionally infected beers.  This rule is in place because we will be serving the beers via jockey boxes and we don’t want to risk any cleaning complications.

• Each brewer must provide a standard 5 gallon keg for the competition.  This rule is in place because we use jockey boxes and it's easier to anonymize the beers that way.

• The use of “Incidental Ingredients” (defined specifically as water salts, fining agents and defoamers) is allowed.  If there are any questions about this please ask BEFORE you brew.

• The use of any ingredient besides those selected during the draft or included in the Incidental Ingredients list is strictly prohibited.

Basic Strategy/Other Considerations

• The assumption is that some ingredients will be in higher demand or in more limited supply than others.  Brewers will want to consider closely which items they want to prioritize selecting during the Draught, and be able to adjust on the fly as ingredients come "off the board".

• Brewers will need to strategize how best to compile their brew.  A wise brewer will familiarize themselves with the ingredients available, assess the number of available shares of each ingredient, have some basic ideas about ingredients they might want to get, and assess how their place in the draft order may impact their ability to source some of the scarcer or more unique ingredients.

• The number of allotments of each ingredient will be based on the number of participants, but the number of premium ingredients will be scarcer than more common ingredients.

• Your ability to be flexible and adjust on the fly will be key to your success.  Brewers will need to be creative in developing their recipes since they won't know what they have until the Draught is concluded.