German Engineering... of facial hair!

Germany is well known for building high performance cars, crafting quality optics, and brewing good beer -- but their prowess in another area is often overlooked despite repeated world championships... in moustaches and beards!

To answer your first question:  yes, there is a World Beard and Moustache Championship, held every two years.  In fact, the first modern world championship was organized and hosted in 1990 by the First Höfener Beard Club in Höfen, Germany.  The competition has hosted up to 200 competitors from 12 countries.  Today there are at least 15 beard clubs in Germany plus there is a national Association of Beard Clubs that organizes the national championships.

World Beard and Moustache Championship, 2009, held in Anchorage Alaska

(Interesting note:  its name in German -- 1. Höfener Bartklub -- is structured just like many soccer teams in the Bundesliga.  For example, 1. FC Köln being the first football club of Cologne, 1. FC Nürnberg, 1. FC Kaiserslautern, and 1. FC Mainz.  They seem to take moustaches and beards as seriously as soccer!)

The world championship has moved around since its beginning, having been held by moustache clubs in Norway, Sweden, Carson City (Nevada), Brighton (UK), and even Anchorage (Alaska)!  The local passion seems to be a southern German thing.  Höfen is in the Black Forest, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, and many of the top German representatives come from this region or Bavaria.  One exception is the 1. Berliner Bartklub (moustache club) which usually sends strong representatives to competitions.

Berlin Moustache Club team for the 2004 German Championship

Here are the winners from the above photo with their awesome trophies!  (Good photos from the 2009 World Championship can be found here.)

 

The World Championships have 18 categories across three groups:
- Moustaches (Natural, English, Dali, Imperial, Hungarian, Freestyle)
- Partial Beards (Natural, Fu Manchu, Musketeer, Imperial, Sideburns Freestyle, and Freeatyle)
- Full Beards (Natural, Natural with Styled Moustache, Verdi, Garibaldi, Freestyle, Best in Show)

The official web site of the World Championship has the category descriptions and examples.  For instance...

English Moustache - "Slender, beginning from the middle of the upper lip with the hairs extremely long and pulled to the side.  Tips may be lifted slightly. The hairs are only allowed to start growing up to the end of the upper lip.  Aids are allowed"

English Moustache category depiction...            ...and 2009 champion Lutz Giese from Germany

                          

(Lutz is the founder and President of the First Berlin Beard Club)

Dali Moustache category depiction...                   ...and 2009 champion Tony Papai, Swabian Beard Club, Germany

                               

Imperial Moustache                    Hungarian Moustache                          Freestyle Moustache

                    

Before we get to the beards, a few other interesting categories:

Musketeer (partial beard)...                                     ...and 2009 champ Jürgen Draheim of Berlin, Germany

                                 

Sideburns freestyle (partial beard)...                       ...and the King forever of this category, Elvis

                       

The partial beard Freestyle category is known from some interesting entries, like the 1st through 3rd place finishers in 2007 (these are partial beards???):

                      

Of course it's the full beard categories that have the largest and most extravagant entries.  The star of the show is Full Beard Freestyle, because basically anything goes (entrants may use styling gels and other aids, but no wires and pins).  Here are 2009 contestants prepping themselves with hair dryers and hairspray...

                         

The perennial favorite in this category is Elmar Weisser from Brigachtal, Germany (also near the Black Forest).  Elmar is a hairdresser and takes his sister and stylist to the championships -- styling takes up to 5 hours on competition day.  He even has a fan club!

Elmar took the title in 2005 (held in Berlin) with his beard formed like the Brandenburg Gate, and then again in 2007 (held in Brighton, UK) with his beard in the structure of London's Tower Bridge.  Here were his winning entries:

               

When his beard isn't styled, it falls down to his waist and "it is sort of folded up". He probably took some inspiration from Gerhard Knapp, who is president of the Pforzheim Beard Club and often considered the grandfather of the sport and inventor of "freestyle bearding".  Here is Gerhard, also a two-time champion:

                 

This year in Trondheim, Norway, 160 contestants participated.  Historically, Europeans (especially Germans) dominate the competition.  Germans won 36 of 57 total trophies in Carson City/2003, and 14 of 17 first-place category winners in Berlin/2005.

But in recent years the U.S. "is fast becoming the world's new facial hair superpower".  The American team now has its own blog too, called USA Beard... although the last post appears to be from March 2009.  Some of this newfound success is attributed to recent home field advantage, as the U.S. showed better in Anchorage (2009) winning 12 of the 18 categories.

So what happened in 2011 in Trondheim -- neutral ground?

- Germany:         7 category winners, 9 category placed
                           (including all top three in Full Beard Freestyle and 5 of 6 partial beard categories)
- United States:  6 category winners, 9 category placed
- Norway:            0 category winners, 5 category placed (for the home team)
- Switzerland:      2 category winners, 2 category placed

And what about the Best in Show 2011, the ultimate achievement in facial hair grooming?  A picture of a (Norwegian?) elk says it all:

Congratulations again to Elmar, winner of Full Beard Freestyle and Best in Show!