Qualifying Venues - State Steinholding Championship Tournaments

We're looking for venues to host Qualifying Round Competitions for our 2025 State Championship Tournaments! Learn more about the benefits and requirements for hosting a State Qualifier at your venue below. We will only have a limited number of Qualifying Venue registrations available in each state, so if you want to get in on the Steinholding action this summer and fall, register by choosing your state and hitting the "Add To Cart" button at the bottom of this page so you don't miss your chance.

What are the benefits of holding a Steinholding competition?

Great question- there are a bunch of benefits, especially if it's a U.S. Steinholding Association State Championship Tournament Qualifying Competition:

• Steinholding competitions are among the best interactive promotional events you can host to engage your fans and attract new patrons to your venue, especially once you establish Steinholding as a yearly tradition and host a multi-round competition at your venue that will have people coming back for more.
• Steinholders from across the state can only secure a spot to compete in the State Finals by qualifying at a registered qualifying venue like yours, and there are limited spots available. The state finalists will be competing for over $500 in prizes plus this year's State Champions will ALSO receive a full Oktoberfest outfit provided by our partners at BavariaTrachten.com where you can use the discount code STEINHOLDING to get 10% off any purchase all season long.
• Registration grants you two competitor invitations for the State Finals- one for a men's representative and one for a women's representative. When you host your Qualifying Round competition, the competitors who win at your location are then invited to compete at the State Finals and represent your venue. We encourage you to hold multiple competitions if you want, but either way your competitions will decide the man and woman who will be your representatives for the state finals (by identifying best overall time, in-house tournament winner, etc.).
• You'll get cross-promotion for your venue from our State Championship partners and USSA through our Competition Map, State Championship pages, and social media competition summary previews including your Steinholding events.
• The State Championship finalists will be competing for bigger prizes, the coveted state tournament trophy, and the title of State Champion, but they can only qualify by competing at a registered Qualifying Venue like yours.
• Your program registration comes with a number of additional membership benefits including:
• Our extensive Competition Planning and Set-up Guide to walk you through hosting a competition and make it super easy for you to get started
• Updated for 2025 An optional free Standard Certification entry into the USSA Judging Certification program, including our Official USSA Judging Manual and certification exam, designed to help train a member of your team in judging, by providing extra explanations of the rules and proper Steinholding form. You can also upgrade to the Premium Certification package as an add-on to your registration.
• Access to monthly video calls with judging/rules demonstrations and Q&A during peak Steinholding season (from July to October, dates and times TBD). There's no substitute for seeing the rules and a demonstration of good form (and bad form) in action, and you'll have access to our Steinholding experts who will use their years of experience to help get you comfortable with the sport. We'll also have an open forum to ask questions about judging, competition planning logistics, or anything else Steinholding-related. Plus we'll have a replay available for you to watch on-demand.
• Member Venue icons on our State and Nation-wide Competition Maps so Steinholders from across the land will know that your event is special, and part of a State Championship Tournament
• We'll also provide you with our logo files, customizable social media and poster templates, and copy to use in your own posts to help you get the word out about your competition and your venue's inclusion in the State Championship Tournament
• A 20% discount on any official USSA-branded competition steins or merch purchases sold through our merch page
• Base pricing (at-cost pricing) on any apparel purchases through our Threadless page
• Access to co-branded and USSA logo banners- As a members-only benefit, we'll work with you to coordinate integration of our logos together or you can purchase USSA logo banners (see examples on our banner page here) and we'll have them shipped directly to your venue. It's a colorful and easy way to spruce up your competition space!
• ...and more!?
• You can charge a competition entry fee for your qualifying round events to offset the costs of hosting a competition, and a well-advertised Steinholding event can more than pay for itself and drive extra interest, especially if you put together special "Steinholding Night" promotions or discounts for your Steinholding participants. These are just a few suggestions and you can do whatever works best for your location, but it is common for competitions to have an entry fee and we can help you decide.
• If a competitor who qualified at your venue wins the State Championship Finals, as our congratulations and thanks to you for helping us advance the sport of Steinholding in your state, we'll gift you with a free Qualifying Venue entry into the next year's State Championship program!

This sounds great. What are the responsibilities of being an official Qualifying Venue?

We need venue partners like you to make the sport accessible by hosting Qualifying Competitions! Here are the basic requirements for participating Qualifying Competition Venues:

• NOTE: You will be responsible for setting up and judging your competition. But don't worry, it's not that hard and the only equipment that you need is some steins! We provide the informational resources described above, and we're happy to answer any questions you have along the way to make it even easier for you to be comfortable running your event. As much as we would like to be at every event throughout the season, we have limited staff, so USSA will not be able to come to your site to conduct the competition for you since we have hundreds of competition events taking place across multiple states.
• You can register your venue or festival and pay the program registration fee using the link below. We're offering an early-registration discounted price of $114 until August 8th, 2025 and after that, the regular price is $129 through the end of the 2025 season (discount will be automatically added in your cart). You can register any time throughout the year to lock in your spot as an official qualifying location for the state tournament as long as you hold your final competition event before the date of the State Finals for your state. Once you register, you'll receive a confirmation email with a link to fill out our qualifying location intake form to let us know the details of your event, which we will then share on our State Championship program page and nation-wide competition map.
• Host a Steinholding Qualifying competition (a separate men's and women's competition) to identify your in-house men's and women's champions in advance of your state's Championship Finals. The competition event must be open to the public (i.e. you can't host a qualifying competition at a private Oktoberfest party at your home). NOTE: The venue where you hold your competition must be physically located in the state of the tournament but there are no residency restrictions on competitors. They are not required to be residents of the state in which the tournament is being held, although competitors must be aged 21 and older.
• We recommend hosting your own multi-round in-house tournament to build more hype and find the strongest competitors your town has to offer to represent your location in the State Finals
• As we mentioned above, we provide an extensive Competition Set-up Guide as part of Venue Membership to make sure your competition goes smoothly and help you decide how to customize the best competition format for your specific venue, and we're always happy to answer any additional questions that you have
• Collect the contact info (name/email/phone) from at least your top 5 men's and top 5 women's competitors and share it with us as soon as you have it so we can confirm their attendance at the State Finals. One man and one woman will be invited to represent your location at the state finals, but we ask that you get the contact info for multiple runners up in each category as well, so we have back-ups in case your winner can't make it to the finals.
• Use the USSA official rules at your competitions. We provide our expanded Judging Manual and one free Standard Judging Certification entry to all State Qualifying venues to help make sure your judges know what they're talking about when it's game time.
• Use 1L dimpled glass steins for your competition. This is key to maintain an even playing field for competitors at all Qualifying Venues. You can purchase our official logo steins with a 20% discount, use your own if you already have some, borrow some from a friend, buy them from somewhere else- it's all good.
• We recommend offering a prize for your in-house champions. A t-shirt or other swag with your logo that your winners can wear when representing you at the State Championship Finals is a great choice, and competition winners traditionally get to keep their stein for practicing, but your in-house prize is up to you.
• Promote your local Steinholding competition and the State Championship event at your venue, on social media, etc. If you want, you can use the customizable flyer templates and social media post templates that we provide. Tag us and throw a #steinholding in there to help spread the word and help attract even more people to your event.

Are you thinking about registering but still on the fence? Not sure that you can meet all of the requirements? No worries, you can shoot us an email at jbanko@ussteinholding.com with any questions. Just remember that we are limiting the number of venue registration slots in each state, so get in touch with us ASAP if you're interested.

Our 2024 State Championship Tournament Line-Up

Check out our current list of states with a State Championship Tournament confirmed for 2024 below and we'll be adding more states soon. If you're not in one of these states but still want to host a competition, click here for more info about your options.

• Massachusetts - State Championship Venue will be Jack's Abby Craft Lagers in Framingham, MA, on Sunday October 6th, 2024! Recruiting for Qualifying Venue registrations is now open!
• Pennsylvania - State Championship Venue will be SteelStacks Oktoberfest in Bethlehem, PA, on Saturday October 12th, 2024! Recruiting for Qualifying Venue registrations is now open!
• Ohio - State Championship Venue will be Moerlein Lager House in Cincinnati, OH, on Saturday October 12th, 2024! Recruiting for Qualifying Venue registrations is now open!
• Illinois - New for 2024! State Championship Venue will be DESTIHL Brewery in Normal, IL, on Saturday October 12th, 2024! Recruiting for Qualifying Venue registrations is now open!
• Florida - New for 2024! State Championship Venue will be World Equestrian Center in Ocala, FL, on Saturday October 12th, 2024! Recruiting for Qualifying Venue registrations is now open!
• New Jersey - State Championship Venue will be King's Road Brewing Co. in Medford, NJ, on Saturday October 19th, 2024; recruiting for Qualifying Venue registrations is now open!
• North Carolina - State Championship Venue will be Gilde Brewery in Charlotte, NC, on Saturday October 19th, 2024; recruiting for Qualifying Venue registrations is now open!
• Connecticut - State Championship Venue will be Bad Dog Brewing Company in Torrington, CT, on Saturday October 19th, 2024 recruiting for Qualifying Venue registrations is now open!
• New York - State Championship Venue will be Hofbräuhaus Buffalo in Buffalo, NY, on Sunday October 20th, 2024; recruiting for Qualifying Venue registrations is now open!
• Tennessee - State Championship Venue will be Schulz Bräu in Knoxville, TN, on Saturday October 26th, 2024! Recruiting for Qualifying Venue registrations is now open!
• Vermont - State Championship Venue will be von Trapp Brewing Co. in Stowe, VT, on Saturday October 26th, 2024; recruiting for Qualifying Venue registrations is now open!
• Michigan - New for 2024! State Championship Venue will be Riverside Event Venue in Trenton, MI, on Saturday October 26th, 2024; recruiting for Qualifying Venue registrations is now open!
• California - State Championship Venue will be South of Shaw Beer Co. in Fresno, CA, on Saturday October 26th, 2024; recruiting for Qualifying Venue registrations is now open!
• Texas - State Championship Venue will be Wurstfest in New Braunfels, TX, on Sunday November 10th, 2024! Recruiting for Qualifying Venue registrations is now open!

In A Different State?

Want to bring a championship event to your state? If you know of a bar, brewery, festival, club, or other awesome venue that wants to host a competition, we would love to partner with you to set up an event in your state. We're targeting a minimum of 15 qualifying venues to host a State Championship program. You can help us to get to this minimum by asking around in your brewers' guild or restaurant group or contacting your friends with venues. We can build from there. Contact the USSA Commissioner's office at jbanko@ussteinholding.com and let us know if you're interested!

Want to host an independent USSA sanctioned competition at your venue? You don't need to be part of a state championship series to host awesome Steinholding events for your patrons. You can still enjoy the benefits of working with the U.S. Steinholding Association by becoming a Member Venue. Check out the benefits of membership here.