Are you going to cook-off? Don’t lie, every year at least one person in your circle will ask you the question. 

From February 23-25, more than 200,000 people will pass through the gates of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo Bar-B-Que Cook-off. For decades people mark their calendars to experience three days of delicious, smokey scents and of course ice cold beer. Honestly, the extravagance of the cook-off and its more than 250 competitors is beyond impressive. Houston’s largest companies and brands come together to wine and dine clients to the tune of an estimated $20 million of entertainment. According to Cutter Brewer, co-founder of the Orange County Brew Crew, party tents can range anywhere from $20,000 to multiple millions of dollars. 

“We started as the little guys with the Weber and you know through the years we made our connections,” said Brewer. However today, his team, which started in 2005, falls into the $50,000 range. 

Those connections, or sponsors, were extremely happy to exclusively eat the best ribs in the world last year. That’s right, the Brew Crew smoked the tastiest ribs and won a World Championship. “For us, it was a sense of pride and accomplishment. We’re a bunch of little guys from Orange, Texas, that nobody knew about and we took down the heaviest hitters,” said Brewer. 

Few people know that cook-off team assembly can be an arms race for dozens of competitors. Everyone wants Ronnie Killen, Pinkertons, Truth, and Brett’s BBQ manning their smokers in the competition. “These guys are the aces! I mean every day they’re putting out fantastic BBQ,” said Brewer, a former contestant on the popular reality cooking show Master Chef. 

But for one day, the small group of friends got to hold the championship trophy. It took 17 years for Brewer and his friends Justin West, Tommy Martin, Craig Verhage, Eric Nies, Leslie Roark, John Maness, Jesse Romero, and Shannon Buckley to achieve the ultimate goal.

If you’re not familiar, teams can compete in multiple categories. The Brew Crew’s previous best finish was thirteenth in brisket. 

How it all began. 

Random groups or friends can’t just sign up and enter the Rodeo Cook-off. In fact, Brewer said his team would have potentially needed to wait 27 years to secure a spot in the contest, but in 2005, their connections hooked them up. “So we actually got grandfathered in from another group of gentlemen. They were called the Double Barrel Cookers out of Orange County and we had some friends from back home that were friends with them. They invited us to go down and check it out and man we fell in love with it.” 

The team’s name, The Brew Crew, derives from one simple task during its initiation with the team out of the Golden Triangle. “They paid the entry fee and we supplied and donated all of the beer and liquor,” said Brewer. 

To this day, the team’s 40’x40’ space includes food prep and pits, live music, lots of cocktails, and amazing dinners each night. But, for you to get into one of the 250-plus tents you do have to know somebody. The general public can get into the event for $20 at the gate. But unless you have a wristband or get a wink from the door guys, you may not get to experience some of the high-end parties. 

Regardless of the surrounding private events, you can always check out an up-and-coming musician for free. For instance, one of the headliners in the 2023 rodeo lineup used to be a free show at the cook-off. “I was looking through one of my Facebook memories the other day and it was from eleven years ago and Cody Johnson was the 2:00 p.m., no name band that was playing,” added Brewer. 

Who Judges the cook-off? 

Believe it or not, the Houston BBQ Cook-off is not a sanctioned event, meaning the judges come from the public. “They literally take people off the street and you can sign up to be a judge for the BBQ cook-off,” said Brewer. “It really is kind of a crapshoot, I look at us and we feel like we’ve been doing good BBQ for a long time, and last year we finally got recognized.” 

That random element is one reason The Brew Crew doesn’t believe there is a secret recipe or a specific model for success at the event. “It’s trial and error. It’s practicing and honing your trade and you know I would say probably over the past 17 years we’ve probably done 15 different types of rubs. That’s what you do when you’re trying to win,” he said. 

Persistence paid off. The team partnered with a seasoning brand called Kosmo’s Q, they won, and now will likely keep using it to see if they can repeat it one day. Last year’s cookoff was a sign of relief for the Brew Crew, a reminder that they’ve come a long way to climb to the top. “We literally used to just bootstrap. All of our friends would give us one hundred bucks for the whole weekend and that’s how we would fund our tent,” said Brewer. 

Now they have corporate sponsorships, amazing food spoken for by the people, and bragging rights for their neighboring tents at the cookoff for years to come. “I mean we truly love what we do and we got a great group of guys and we’re all good friends. We all live in different places now so it’s a chance once a year that we get to see each other and do something we love together.”

Written By: Lance Edwards

Find more about Lance Edwards by visiting his contributing writer page here.