MARKETPLACE
SPRENGER NEARLY HAS TOP BREW The United States fared a bit better in another competition held
in Vienna. At the World Brewers Cup, U.S. champ Andy Sprenger, who works as the head roaster at Annapolis, Md.'s Ceremony Coffee Roasters, made it to the final round and finished second behind Australia's Matt Perger.
TOP-THREE FINISH: Andy Sprenger, the only person to win the two-year-old U.S. Brewers Cup, placed second at the 2012 world competition.
Sprenger didn't stray far from the routine that earned him the
U.S. crown, using the same coffee and brew method he employed in Portland—a Colombian coffee called Cerro Azul made with a Bee House ceramic coffee dripper. The only major change he made for the world competition was one stemming from judges' feed- back after his U.S. win. "One of the comments I got on all three of the score sheets for the U.S. competition was that I need to engage more with the judges," he says. "That's something I really worked on for the world competition." He shifted away from a science- focused look at extraction and toward a storytelling approach that included a bit of discussion about Melitta Bentz, creator of the modern-day pour-over. "I wanted it to be almost like I was brewing for friends and family," he says. "I didn't want to talk about stuff that a lot of people wouldn't understand." The U.S. Brewers Cup has existed for two years, and Sprenger
won the event both times. At last year's world competition, he failed to make the six-person final round, placing ninth. Though he was disappointed not to take the crown this year, Sprenger says he was excited by the year-to-year improvement and hon- ored to finish runner-up. "There's a tiny bit of bittersweetness," he says, "but to be in the top six is just a great honor." And the second-place finish will likely end Sprenger's Brewers Cup legacy; the 39-year-old husband and father says he's ready to hang it up. "I put tons and tons of time into it, at the cost of not spending as much time with my family," he says. "I really enjoy the competi- tion, but I think I'm done."
freshcup.com July 2012 53
CHRIS RYAN