About Us

The Australasian Barbecue Alliance is Australia’s foremost society promoting and developing traditional barbecue & smoking culture, sanctioning official ABA competitions nationwide.

Our mission:

To promote low and slow and barbecue in Australia and New Zealand.
To create, define and implement a set of competition rules and categories that embrace the cultural traditions and ingredients of Australia & New Zealand, while still respecting and acknowledging the rich heritage of American barbecue culture.
To ensure the rules and formats of ABA sanctioned competitions encourage participation and community growth.
To provide support to selected national and international barbecue related events and promotions wherever possible.
To create and continuously improve an ABA judging standard and method and also provide training for judges attending ABA sanctioned events.
Have at least one senior representative of the ABA at each sanctioned event to oversee the format and ensure a fair and consistent competition and judging process.

Co-Founders

Jay Beaumont

Co-Founder

Jay is the creator and organiser of the Port Macquarie Blues & BBQ Festival, the largest national BBQ Championship ever held in Australia. He is the Managing Editor of Focus Publications, Publisher of 100 Dishes of the Pacific Coast and Art Director for Cafe Culture Magazine and The Healthy Cook. He loves meat, BBQ and travelling.

Jess Pryles

Co-Founder

Jess is a respected authority on Texas- and competition-style barbecue. She is the creator of the Hardcore Carnivore line of meat and steak seasonings, and the designer of an eponymous model of the Pitts & Spitts smoker. In addition to sharing her expertise at events sponsored by such institutions as Texas A&M University, the American Meat Science Association, and the Texas Beef Council, she has been featured on the Food Network and Today and in such publications as Parade, Food & Wine, and the Austin Chronicle, among others. She lives in Austin.

Adam Roberts

Co-Founder

A self-confessed food enthusiast and proud self-taught cook, he owned his own mobile food kitchen for several years serving up tasty treats including American Style gourmet Hot Dogs and crowd-favourite Smokey Barbecue Pulled Pork Sliders. Having partaken in many years’ worth of girth building food-on-foot tours in New York, LA, Las Vegas, the Caribbean, Mexico, Spain, Italy, Turkey, Greece, Indonesia and the South Pacific Islands, some of his favourite dishes are Spanish Tapas and also American Style Barbecue. In 2017, Adam became a published Cookbook Author for the the book ‘Ribs’, featuring 47 Ribs recipes covering Pork, Lamb, Beef & Chicken Ribs.