My homebrew club, the Austin ZEALOTS, recently held it's competition, The Inquisition. Our club's Primary Fermenter (President) Corey Martin hosted the event at his house and also threw an after party. There, club members could pick leftover duplicate bottles and give them a try. For the most part, everyone would pick a bottle and pour a small taste for themselves. If the beer was good, they would pass it around. One thing that struck me as I played homebrew roulette that evening was the consistently high quality of the beers. 

A buddy of mine from the Houston Foam Rangers, Doak Proctor, was also at the party and we got to talking about how much homebrewers have improved over the years. Both of us have judged at a fair amount of contests and we mentioned how, many years ago, at a typical homebrew contest, about one-third of the beers were likely to be problematic (and contamination was a very common culprit); the middle third would be drinkable, but not good by any stretch of the imagination and the final third would be solid. 

These days, at a typical homebrew contest, almost every beer is pretty good, and a few are fantastic. The winner in a flight is not just that beer that doesn't show any faults; to win today you have to beat multiple beers that are actually good (and, in BJCP shows, good representations of the beer style). Lagers in particular, have gotten a lot better. Back in the day, almost every homebrewed lager you would taste had a distinct character to it that pegged it as homebrew. These days, many homebrewed lagers are as crisp, clean and well-conditioned as comparable commercial examples. 

Sure, contaminated beers still crop up, and there are beers that may taste fine (or at least are not  contaminated or showing any major beer faults), but don't bear much resemblance to what they are supposed to be. However, by and large, a flight of homebrews at any present day contest is likely to contain mostly well-brewed beers. 

So, why is this? Well, I think there are a few reasons for why homebrew — or at least the average or median homebrew — has gotten so good. And, trying to make some sense of these factors may let us speculate if the trend is likely to continue. 

Ingredient Quality 

I really think ingredient quality has gone up over the years, and there are a couple reasons for this. First, as more people homebrew, shops turn over their inventory quicker and what's on the shelves today is, I believe, fresher (on average) than it was many years ago. Also, some ingredients are just plain improved. Dried yeast, for example, is better than it has ever been. Second, both shops and homebrewers are getting better at storing their ingredients properly. (In "the good old days," it was common to see stores selling bags of brown hop pellets sitting out at room temperature.) Thirdly, I think homebrewers are getting better at assessing the freshness of their ingredients and throwing old, stale malt or brown, cheesy hops rather than brewing with them. 

Pitching Rate

It's a lot easier to pitch an adequate amount of yeast today. Both Wyeast and White Labs now sell containers that contain over 100 billion cells. And homebrewers are getting more serious about making good yeast starters, including the fact that many homebrewers are building their own magnetic stir plates to raise their yeast in continuously (or intermittently) aerated cultures. 

Contests

Not every homebrewer enters contests, but many that do end up becoming better brewers. Brewers who like entering contests frequently brew more often, so they can submit more beers and hopefully win more medals. And, as the saying goes, practice makes perfect. Anything that causes you to brew more frequently is going to be a good thing. 

Serious contest entrants also get very good at tasting their beer critically and rebrewing and tweaking beer recipes. Brewing the same beer more than once and tweaking it is a great way to take your beers from so-so to super. 

The competitive spirit drives a lot of homebrewers to really focus on every aspect of their brewing and to get better along the way. Also, you don't need to enter contests to get competitive. Simply trying to better your own beers every time you brew is one way to get fired up about brewing. 

Knowledge

When assessing why homebrew is so much better (on average) today than in the past, the most important factor, in my opinion, is knowledge. Homebrewers today simply know more about brewing and the information available to them is much more likely to be solid. 

Will the trend continue?

It sure could. If the hobby continues to grow, and homebrews get pickier about ingredient freshness and proper storage, this would help. This may not be economically feasible right now, but if liquid companies offered larger yeast cultures, with higher cell counts, that would help. Certainly, with new homebrewers entering the hobby all the time, anything to help newbies get started in the hobby with the most up-to-date  information would be a good thing. Homebrew clubs are a great place for new brewers to ask questions and get feedback, and online forums can be a good resource, too (once you learn how to separate the wheat from the chaff).