MONTGOMERY – A panel of celebrity judges will sample seven local barbecue sauces Saturday at the Southern Makers festival in downtown Montgomery.  The sauces are among 34 in a statewide competition to name Alabama’s best barbeque sauce.

Four of the five judges are members of the media including:

Melissa McKinney of WSFA-12

Heather VacLav of WAKA-8

Allison Griffin of the Montgomery Advertiser

Hunter Lewis of Southern Living.

Chris Blankenship of the Alabama Seafood Marketing Commission will be the fifth judge.

The judges will sample sauces from Berdeaux’s, Fat Boy’s, Mike & Ed’s, Mike Elliott’s, Noodie’s, Phil’s and The BBQ Shack. The bottled sauces were gathered from area restaurants and grocery stores. The winner will represent the River Region at the “BBQ Sauce-Off” championship on May 18 in Birmingham.

Alabama Tourism Department’s Brian Jones said the BBQ Sauce-Off in Montgomery is one of four regional competitions. “We will also be judging Saturday down in Mobile at Market on the Square. Other competitions will occur next Saturday at farmers markets in Decatur and Tuscaloosa,” said Jones.

The BBQ Sauce-Off is a follow up to the popular BBQ Bracket contest on Facebook that the Alabama Tourism Department did last month. “We had more than 81,000 votes cast on our Alabama Food Facebook page with Jim ‘N Nick’s ending up as our state winner. The BBQ Bracket was like a hit movie and the Sauce-Off is our sequel,” Jones said.

Montgomery’s sauce-off will be at 3 p.m. at the historic Union Station Train Shed in downtown Montgomery as part of the Southern Makers festival.  Learn more about Alabama food products, chefs, culinary destinations and events at Facebook.com/AlabamaFood and at www.yearofalabamafood.com.