Steve Koenemann

Harpoon BBQ Championships of New England

Each July for the last 10 years some of New England’s best barbequers and grillers have descended upon tiny Windsor, VT for the New England Championships of BBQ, which is hosted on the grounds of the Harpoon Brewery. This New England Barbecue Society supervised event is attended by thousands of hungry BBQ fans all hoping to get a taste of some of the best BBQ this side of Kansas City and, of course, to sample some of Harpoon’s great beers.

We have attended this event the last several years and have always seemed to luck out with the weather on the day that we chose to attend. This year was no different and the weather was perfect… sunny and VERY hot… with the temperature hovering near 90F and the dewpoint well over 70F by mid-afternoon. Based on my observations from years past, I would have to say that the event was far better attended than in previous years. By late afternoon, in spite of the oppressive heat, the area in front of the beer tent as well as all of the aisles/roads around the venue had turned into a hot seething mass of humanity.

This year’s event saw 42 teams compete for the title of “The Harpoon New England Grand Champion”. Because this is a KCBS (Kansas City Barbecue Society) sanctioned event judged by KCBS-certified judges, this event’s Grand Champion qualifies for the nation’s ultimate barbecue competition, the American Royal Barbecue held at the end of September in Kansas City. The American Royal Barbecue is the season finale for the grueling competitive BBQ circuit. Spreading over 20 acres in Kansas City’s historic Stockyards District, with nearly 500 teams competing in four culinary contests, The Royal is the largest barbecue contest in the world and can truly be called the “World Series of Barbecue.”

The Harpoon BBQ event is actually two competitions in one weekend… one for BBQ (Saturday) and the other for Grilling (Sunday). The combined scores from both of these contests is used to determine the event Grand Champion. We attended only on Saturday and were able to sample BBQ’d products from several of the event’s competitors. To be very honest, I am both extremely envious and incredibly in awe of the people that try to (and apparently can) distinguish the subtle differences between each competitor’s offerings. We sampled BBQ from several competitors and all of the BBQ that I tasted was outstanding. I would find it very difficult to name a “winner” from those few competitors and can’t imagine trying to select the best from all 42. As we have learned in previous years, it is always a bit of a crap shoot in trying to select your samples carefully in hopes of correctly choosing to taste BBQ from the eventual winner. We were not that fortunate this year, but the all competitors that we did eat from finished in the top 10 overall. The team named the event Grand Champion must have had one of those incredibly rare weekends where everything seemed to come together for them. The team “Feeding Friendz” was named the top team on both days (BBQ and Grilling) and will be headed to Kansas City in September to compete against the BBQ world’s best.

There are other things going on at this event besides just BBQ eating and beer drinking; though I am sure those would be enough for many people. The New England Barbecue Society in cooperation with the Harpoon folks have a tent set up for something called the “Beer and Barbecue University”. Here they conduct informational seminars throughout the day on many topics surrounding, not surprisingly, beer and barbecue. I did not attend any of these session this year, which I have found very interesting in past years, but the tent was packed full of people all afternoon.

The event is also host to the Vermont “Strongman” competition every year. Men and women compete to see who can lift, carry or drag the heaviest objects in several different categories. Though not quite on par with similar, world-class competitions seen on television, it is fairly impressive to watch these folks compete against each other and themselves; feats particularly challenging on such a warm day.

As a final note, I would like to digress a bit from the Barbecue and Beer theme of this article to talk about another of my passions… hot peppers! I have been a chili-head for many years and truly love the “endorphin rush” that comes from obsessively scorching your insides with peppery foods. As you might expect at events like these, there are always a few vendors offering hot pepper products (rubs, powders, sauces, relishes, etc.) for sale. These vendors usually always provide small samples of their products. While I have a very high tolerance for capsiacin (the “active” ingredient in chili peppers) compared to most people, I had a bit of a life altering experience at the hands of one of these vendors. I was “treated” to a very small sample of a hot sauce with the catchy name of “East Armageddon Post Apocalyptic”. This sauce contains elements of the Ghost Pepper (Bhut Jolokia), which according to Guinness is the world’s hottest pepper, and just a touch of pure capsiacin oleoresin. As a result, the sauce is rated at over 1,000,000 Scoville Units. Honestly… this pepper sauce significantly and forever changed my definition of *HOT*. There is not any real flavor to a product such as this, despite what others might say; it is all about the heat, the burn and the “rush” that they produce. Without experiencing that level of heat for yourself, you cannot really imagine how hot that sauce really is. There are many products on the market that are rated even hotter than this one and I can’t imagine what they would be used for, but I am sure that “ego” might play a part in their selection and consumption. While my experience was not worthy of a video on YouTube (fortunately), I did feel the effects of that tiny sample for quite a while afterwards.

I am fairly certain that Harpoon will host this excellent event again next year and I would hope to attend it again. It is a great opportunity for Harpoon to not only showcase their beer, which included their WBC medal winning UFO Hefe, but it also shows their support of the greater New England community. This is a family and pet friendly event that will continue to draw large crowds because of the great food as well as the fun and novelty of watching teams of people compete to claim title as the “best” at producing some of America’s favorite summertime foods.

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