The Church Basement Cabbage Championship: Where Ohio's Sauerkraut Makers Go to War (Politely)

It’s 9 a.m. on a Saturday in early October, and the basement of St. John’s Lutheran Church smells like a pickle factory that lost a fight with a cabbage. Folding tables sag under the weight of 43 crocks—stoneware, plastic, even one repurposed pickle barrel—each labeled with a name, a date, and a cryptic note like “2% brine, no shortcuts.” This is the annual Backyard Sauerkraut Championship of a small town an hour northeast of Columbus, and I’m here because I heard a rumor: in this corner of Ohio, sauerkraut isn’t just a condiment. It’s a sport. And like any sport, it has rivalries.

The Rivalry That Ferments in the Dark

The first person I meet is Donna Hoffmeister, 67, who has entered the contest every year since 1986. She’s wearing an apron that says “Kraut Life” and she’s already suspicious of me. “You’re not a judge, are you?” she asks. “Because the judges don’t show up until noon. And they don’t wear sneakers.” I assure her I’m just a writer. She squints. “We had a writer from the paper once. He called it ‘fermented cabbage.’ We didn’t care for that.”

Donna’s main rival is her neighbor, Gary Bauman, 59, a retired electrician who started fermenting sauerkraut “as a joke” in 2014 and has placed second three times. Gary’s crock is a 20-gallon beast he found at a flea market in Zanesville. Donna’s is a 5-gallon stoneware crock her grandmother brought from Bavaria. “It’s not about the size,” Donna says. “It’s about the patience.” Gary, overhearing, snorts. “It’s about the salt. Donna uses too much salt.” They’ve been arguing about salt for seven years. Neither has won first place since 2019.

The Rubric: Crunch, Sour, and ‘That Smell’

Judging starts at noon, administered by three women from the church’s altar guild, each armed with a plastic spoon and a clipboard. The rubric is simple: crunch (30 points), sourness (30 points), smell (20 points), and appearance (20 points). The “smell” category is officially called “aroma,” but everyone calls it “that smell.” As judge Marge Kessler puts it, “If it doesn’t make you wince a little, it’s not done.”

Each entry is opened in front of the judges. The lid comes off. The smell hits the first row. There are nods, furrowed brows, one dramatic cough. Gary’s sauerkraut gets a “hmm” from Marge, which he later interprets as “a good hmm.” Donna’s gets an “oh, that’s nice” from the youngest judge, which Donna says is “a pity nice.”

The tasting is done in silence, except for the crunch. You can hear it from across the room—a wet, satisfying snap that tells you the cabbage was fresh and the ferment was cool. The judges scribble notes. One entry is disqualified for being “too pretty,” which apparently means the cabbage was cut too uniformly. “We’re not making coleslaw,” Marge says.

The Crocks in the Basement

While the judges deliberate, I wander the tables. The crocks are a museum of Ohio basement culture. There’s a ceramic crock with a lid weighed down by a brick from a demolished chimney in Canton. There’s a food-grade plastic bucket that once held banana peppers from a Greek restaurant in Dayton. There’s a crock with a hand-painted sign: “Do not open until Thanksgiving. Seriously. — Mom.”

The fermenters themselves are a mix of ages and backgrounds: a retired school bus driver, a couple of college students who drove up from Athens, a man who claims he hasn’t bought sauerkraut from a store since 1998. They trade tips in low voices. “You gotta skim the scum,” one says. “Twice a week, minimum.” Another: “I use a plate and a ziplock bag full of water. Works every time.”

This is the strange community that forms around bubbling crocks. It’s not a club with dues or officers. It’s a text chain that lights up in September, a shared Google Doc of brine ratios, a standing invitation to come over and smell someone else’s basement. As Donna puts it, “We’re not friends because we like each other. We’re friends because we understand each other.”

The Verdict (and the Grudge)

At 2 p.m., Marge rings a cowbell. The room goes quiet. Third place goes to a first-timer named Kevin who fermented his cabbage in a cooler with an airlock he bought on the internet. Second place goes to Gary, who pumps his fist and immediately looks at Donna. First place goes to Donna, for the fourth time in her life.

Gary claps. He’s a good sport, mostly. “She’s got the patience,” he says, shrugging. “I got the salt.” Donna accepts her ribbon—a blue rosette that’s been reused since 1986—and gives a short speech. “I’d like to thank my crock,” she says. “And my grandmother. And the cabbage.”

Later, I ask her if she’ll enter next year. “Oh, absolutely,” she says. “Gary’s already talking about a new brine recipe. I gotta stay ahead.”

As I leave, the basement still smells like sauerkraut, and the crocks are being packed up for another year. If you’re wondering what OH Wa FG means, the people here don’t know either. But they agree on one thing: it’s a good excuse to eat cabbage.