This coming weekend, Atlanta will be the epicenter of American coffee culture, as the Big Peach plays host to this year’s Southeast Regional Barista Competition.

The states eligible for competition in this year’s SERBC include Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, and the District of Columbia. Sprudge.com will be reporting live from this year’s SERBC, offering you unparalleled coverage of the event through a series of live-tweets, original photos and videos. Our coverage at SERBC is sponsored by Wilbur Curtis Co., whose Gold Cup brewer will be on Brewers Cup batch brew duty all weekend long.

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There’s some coverage up already via the SCAA, who are now featuring a glimpse at a few of this year’s competitors over on their “Meet The Competitors” page. There’s also a full competition schedule here – and we have non-PDF quick reference SERBC and Brewers Cup schedules.

Judges calibration and what-not begin on Thursday, February 9th at 9am at the Georgia World Congress Center, which will play host to all of this weekend’s event. That evening there is a Thursday Night Throwdown held at Octane Coffee (Grant Park, 437 Memorial Drive Suite A5, Atlanta, GA 30312). Sign-up starts at 7pm.

Friday, February 10th is the first full-day of competition: 28 barista competitors beginning at 8:30am, 13 brewers cup competitors beginning at 1pm. It’s a full Southern barista breakfast pig-out of epic competitive proportions. That evening, Sprudge sponsor Batdorf & Bronson are hosting a party for the BGA at Dancing Goats Coffee Bar (419 W Ponce De Leon, Decatur, GA). Event begins at 8pm. Happening in conjunction with this party is an event called “Discover:Lever”, billed as “an opportunity to get hands-on with the Astoria Gloria lever machine and be educated,” and hosted by David Buehrer of Greenway Coffee Company, Sean Marshall of Fusion Beans Coffee Roasting, and Nicholas Lundgaard of Home-Barista.com. Check out their event listing on Facebook.

SERBC 2012 comprises one day of first round competitors, and one day of finals for both Barista Competition entries and Brewers Cup competitors. Finals begin Saturday, February 11th at 11:00 AM.ย  We are guessing that there’s gonna be some fun stuff going on that Saturday night, and we’ll be sure to update with that info as it comes in to us. There’s lots of you nice Southerners we’ve never had the pleasure of meeting before, and we can’t wait to be there in Atlanta to cover our first-ever SERBC weekend. See y’all real soon.

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