National Homebrew Competition winners revealed, recipes and tips inside

Zymurgy's November December 2025 issue puts the spotlight on the 2025 National Homebrew Competition by publishing medal winning and gold medal recipes alongside a suite of feature articles aimed at homebrewers who want to learn and experiment. The package includes tested recipes in both all grain and extract formats, a free online preview, technical deep dives, and pointers to member only educational materials such as archived seminars and recipe libraries.

At the top of the issue, the competition recipes give brewers direct starting points for recreating award winning beers. Tested recipes reduce guesswork on mash schedules, hop timing, yeast choices, and fermentation targets so you can scale trials from one gallon to larger batches with more predictable results. The inclusion of both all grain and extract versions broadens accessibility for brewers working with different equipment and budgets.

Feature articles expand the issue beyond recipe copying. Pieces on brewing while facing adversity and on women in brewing bring community and personal resilience into focus, underlining brewing as a craft that builds networks and supports inclusion. Practical coverage of frugal brewing tactics demonstrates low cost methods for ingredient substitution, reuse of certain supplies, and smart purchasing that preserves beer quality while cutting expenses. A technical feature on high gravity homebrew unicorns explores techniques for safely producing high alcohol beers without sacrificing balance or drinkability.

The issue functions as a compact how to resource for club meetings, brew nights, and solo projects. Brewers can use the tested recipes to run side by side comparisons, adopt frugal approaches to lower batch cost, or review technical notes before attempting high gravity builds. Members have additional value with access to archived seminars and recipe libraries, which are useful for step by step troubleshooting and for adapting medal winning formulas to local water and equipment.

For practical next steps, try the free online preview to identify recipes that fit your system, brew a small scale test batch to validate flavor and gravity, and consult archived seminars for fermentation and yeast management guidance. The combination of medal winning recipes and targeted instruction makes this issue a useful tool for anyone looking to raise their brew day outcomes and deepen their involvement in the homebrewing community.