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I have had the great pleasure of judging beer writing so when I saw the announcement of The British Guild of Beer Writers winners, I quickly clicked this here LINK to see how many names I recognized.
And I did see folks who I have mentioned on this blog such as Mark Dredge and Emma Inch and Ruvani de Silva who I will recommend reading again to anyone who is looking for more beer knowledge.
San Diego Beer News held their 2024 awards at Stone – Liberty Station a couple days ago with the theme of Celebrating the Next Generation.
Here are some takeaways from the event…
Burgeon, Pure Project and GOAL brewing won the most medals
I love that there are not only awards for beer but for customer service, expansion and interior
I was heartened to see that each medal was “presented by” a business which augurs well for an industry beset of late.
You can get the full recap HERE
Time to look to the south of L.A. to see who won at the San Diego Beer News Awards last night…
Let’s do the numbers….(rather, summarize the winners)
Eppig won the most combined medals for first, second and third place finishes amongst the 26 beer style categories.
Burgeon won most votes for best brewery with regional winners including…
North – Pure Project
Central – Societe
East – Stone
South – North Park Beer
Finally, Tomme Arthur won the first ever Vanguard Brewer Award.
The awarding of the medals happened in Denver yesterday at The Great American Beer Festival in a production better paced and funnier than the Emmy’s, the Brewers Association live streamed their awards for 2018. It took an “unpacking” team three + weeks to sort the 8,864 entries from 2,404 breweries so that medal worthy beers could be tabbed.
So let’s dive into the statistics and see how our corner of the beer world fared competitively.:
Bronze
Smog City Kumquat Saison
Enegren Brewing Nighthawk Dark Lager
Trustworthy Brewing (formerly Verdugo West) Bear Temper Barleywine
Silver
Pocock It’s My Island Irish Stout
Bravery Brewing The Shroud Imperial Stout
6th & La Brea Skag Scotch Ale
Gold
Beachwood Blendery Funk Yeah!
Considering how many breweries we now have, that is a decent-ish showing. Orange County (especially Green Cheek) got called on stage more, as did San Diego naturally. With San Diego edging out our OC cousins barely but both in double digits. From here on in, it would be good to see our own mark of ten
One of my favorite breweries, Firestone Walker got two medals in kind of weird ways. They won silver in the brand new Collaboration category for their work with BarrelWorks on Pixie Dusted tangerine sour. And they won for Feral Brut, a beer not being released until next week.
Figueroa Mountain picked up a trio of wins on the day as well bringing their eight-year total to 23!
Favorite Beer Names:
Germophile Berliner Weisse from Rowley Farmhouse
Liquid AC Summer Ale from Karl Strauss
Other notes:
Two babies got the Papazian fist bump.
Winning Juicy/Hazy Beers were primarily from the south and Mid-West
One of the winners from Texas had. Beto Election Beer shirts on.
Loved that the Chuckanut Brewery has sub-named it’s two locations, North Nut and South Nut
To me, competitions are barometers. Some barometers are of higher quality than others of course but almost all have their use.
That disclaimer now aside, The L.A. International Beer Competition was held recently and L.A. brewers from literally, all over the map, took home honors. Many more than last year.
Here are the results:
Gold: 11 Wins
Arts District Brewing Compatny, Gretzky (Historical Beer)
Arts District Brewing Company, Honeycut (Session IPA)
MacLeod Ale Brewing Co., Van ICE (American-Style or German-Style Light Lager)
Angel City Brewery, Marilyn Blonde Ale (American-Style Cream Ale)
Claremont Craft Ales, Pistil Pale Ale (American-Style Strong Pale Ale)
El Segundo Brewing Co., Hammerland (Imperial India Pale Ale)
Verdugo West Brewing Co., Brass Jar Hoppy Amber (Imperial Red Ale)
Sanctum Brewing, Your Destiny (German-Style Sour Ale)
Bravery Brewing, Hammer Hef (German-Style Wheat Ale)
Arts District Brewing Company, Spirited Saison (Classic French and Belgian-Style Saison)
Pocock Brewing Company, Being All Fancy (Special Saison)
Ladyface Ale Companie, Trois Filles (Belgian-Style Tripel)
Silver: 12 Wins
HopSaint Brewing Company, Fistful of Peel (Belgian-Style Fruit Beer)
Smog City Brewing, The Nothing (Chocolate or Cocoa Beer)
Innovation Brew Works, Cattle Rancher (American-Belgo Style Ale)
Smog City Brewing, Bourbon O.E. (Wood and Barrel-Aged Strong Beer)
Bravery Brewing, Bourbon Barrel-Aged The Shroud (Wood and Barrel-Aged Stout)
Angel City Brewery, Pinot Fresa (Wood and Barrel-Aged Sour Beer)
Alosta Brewing, Highway 39 (Dortmunder or German-Style Oktoberfest)
Smog City Brewing, Sabre-Toothed Squirrel (American-Style Amber or Red Ale)
Claremont Craft Ales, Buddy (American-Style Black Ale)
Ladyface Ale Companie, La Grissette (Belgian and French-Style Ale)
Old Stump Brewing, P Town Porter (Brown Porter)
Eagle Rock Brewery, Stimulus (Imperial Stout)
Bronze: 13 Wins
The Dudes’ Brewing Company, Juicebox Series: Boysenberry Wheat Ale (Fruit Wheat Beer)
Three Weavers Brewing, Southbounder (Coffee Beer)
Beachwood BBQ, Why We’re Here [Black Lime] (Wood and Barrel-Aged Sour Beer)
Angel City Brewery, Black Lager (Schwarzbier or Black Lager)
Pacific Plate Brewing Co., German Kolsch (German-Style Kolsch)
Three Weavers Brewing, Deep Roots (Ordinary or Special Bitter)
Pocock Brewing Company, British Volunteer (Extra Special Bitter)
Ladyface Ale Companie, Lady La Blonde (Belgian-Style Blonde or Pale Ale)
Eagle Rock Brewery, Manifesto (Belgian-Style Witbier)
Beachwood Blendery, Careful With That Peach, Eugene (Belgian-Style Lambic or Sour Ale)
Ladyface Ale Companie, Blind Ambition (Belgian-Style Dubbel or Quadruple)
Claremont Craft Ales, Irish Dry Stout (Classic Irish-Style Stout)
Bravery Brewing, The Shroud (Imperial Stout)
I have to applaud the Brewers Association. They have walked the fine line of being a trade organization while also adding a bit of policing to their actions as well. This is all due to offensive beer labels. A problem that sits in the corner mostly but will occasionally flare up whenever a brewery in some weird bubble decides to use a name that most would find offensive, primarily aimed (99%) against women.
The plan is that a brewery can make and name a beer in an offensive way and they can enter it into competitions like the World Beer Cup and the Great American Beer Festival BUT if they win, the beer will not be announced from the stage (I assume an awkward pause will be the substitute) nor can the brewery market the win by using the name of the competition won.
Basically, a brewery can say it won a medal and that seems to be the extent of it. They will not be allowed to link the BA or the competition name with the beer. New will be required signing of licensing agreements with terms of use for using the BA name PRIOR to entering a competition.
And while adding this new code, they acknowledged that this action was not going to be easy to enforce. Bob Pease the CEO of the BA made it clear (through some unfortunate phrasing) that , “..it’s gonna be sticky. It’s going to be hard.”
I think this action will help. Either a brewery will change a name, hopefully forcing a burst of creativity, or they will not enter the beer in competition. It does not abridge their rights of free speech or get them blocked from joining or staying in the craft beer club. It basically starves the brewery of the attention that it probably desired. Each time a beer name is typed into a form for one of these two competitions the one doing the typing had better be doing so with this rule in mind.
Before anyone flies off the handle with this is America, this is PC bulls..t, everyone is too easily offended, remember who are Not-My-President is right now. This country could use a LOT more rules about denigrating speech than it currently has on the books.
Breweries need to craft great beer and great beer names.
I can always count on the Beervana blog to alter my view of the beer world. Jeff Alworth can evenhandedly explain a subject where I would be jokingly dismissive.
Such is the case with his post on Lists and Awards. Read it right HERE. After I read it, I immediately wanted to clarify my position on the dreaded “Ten Best”.
Right up front, I acknowledge that I have read many and used some in research. Furthermore, I have written various beer lists (by style, best of and the like) and will do so in the future. There are lists of books and favorite beers on this very site as well. So why do I deride them as lazy? Isn’t that hypocritical of me?
As with most things in life, the answer is a complicated maybe.
There are two red flags for me when it comes to the common listicle or Best of post. First is the source. More than the actual content itself.
If you are a food or travel or beer blog, I will take a gander at your list and ascribe authority to it depending on my thoughts on the writer. If say, John Verive who writes for the L.A. Times amongst many other publications writes about places in Neigborhood A to visit, I can trust that he will list places of merit or interest because I know him. Same with CraftBeer.com and other websites that I routinely click on. The content provider needs to inspire trust. And this is true for practically any information that I consume.
On the other hand, if the list of best IPA’s comes from a place that isn’t beer related, then I will move past it. It may be a perfectly serviceable list but if I don’t have any verification of the writer or writers or site creators then it is no better than a random stranger on a soapbox yelling that Sculpin is better than Two Hearted.
This leads to the second flag, the purpose which is tied to that source. Buzzfeed is the protoype of the genre (Thrillist as well) and catches the most heat from me because they are not in the beer education business. They are in the clicks business. If their base would mouse onto lists of the best widget makers or snipe hunting gear, they would write listicles about it. You can tell a website is not in the giving a shit business when they move from lists to videos about people eating strange food for the first time without looking back.
Once you get past those two hurdles with me, the content itself better be useful. Which is really hard since taste is so subjective. This goes for blog posts or awards . For example, the Tony Awards gave statues to Hamilton and The Humans for Best Musical and Best Play. I have listened to the soundtrack to Hamilton and I had the fortune to see The Humans on Broadway and now when I see the phrase, “Tony Award Winning” my estimation goes up just as my estimation of the Oscars have gone down due to some strange “winner” choices in the past few years. It is why I give more weight to GABF awards since I have seen how that sausage is made.
In the end, not many awards or blog lists pass muster with me and those that do can see their influence on me wax and wane because I am constantly re-evaluating. That is what really chaps my hide about people who religiously consume them or who find it fun to create arguments because of them. Those basket of deplorables are not even using them correctly as guideposts or jumping off points. It is simply my favorite beer won a Gold Medal so now I am validated in my views and seemingly more importantly, you and I are wrong in ours. Maybe it is part of our “agree with me culture” that is so evident in our current election cycle and social media feeds.
I strive to make any list on my website or on Food GPS to be helpful in the way that a curator in a museum is. I want to put interesting beers on view so that the reader can find a new brewery to follow or to simply find a new beer to try. I am not aiming for clicks. I won’t put a beer on a list to get comments or troll people.
After all these blogging years, the goal is still to search the beer world and bring back those that I find so that others can start their own adventure.
Another edition of the Great American Beer Festival is in the books. Here is a curated awards round-up with a focus on LA area based breweries.
Imagine you had 7,227 beers in front of you. Picture that in your mind. That is the beast that Charlie Papazian has wrought. He pioneered this festival through 35 years and it was heartening to see Colorado Governor Hickenlooper honor him for his service and all of the many fist bumps that must make his right hand a mess on the Sunday after the awards ceremony.
96 categories were contested this year with (7) new categories added for 2016. Pumpkin /Squash Beer, Finnish Sahti, Swedish Gotlandsricke, Pale and Dark Breslau Schoeps, German Leichtbier and Specialty Saison.
Let’s get into the Los Angeles winners shall we? ABove is Bob Kunz and the Highland Park team which won GOLD with Good Green for American-Style Strong Pale Ale. El Segundo, known for hops, won for their lager instead, Casa Azul. The Beachwood Blendery was not in chaos but their friendly Lambic won silver. Also winning silver was Devon Randall and Arts District Brewing in the Smoke Beer category for Cowboy Curtis. Also, very impressively Huntington Beach’s Riip Beer Co. took silver in the highly competitive and largest group, IPA with their Super Cali IPA. An amazing 312 beers were in that category! Moving down to bronze we find Kinetic Brewing winning that shade in the Chocolate Beer category for 4th Gear, newbie Iron Triangle started snared the Imperial Stout bronze for Jawbone, reliable winners Smog City got bronze for Sabre-Toothed Squirrel as well.
For reasons unknown to me, the Pabst plant of industrial beer won a pair of medals as well as another Large Brewing Company plaque. So there is that LA connection too.
Big Winners of the morning presentation were (4) medal winners Figueroa Mountain and Überbrew from Billings, Montana.
Going all statistical, the best results were posted by Wyoming, Hawaii and Virginia. California picked up 56 medals all told. IPA’d dominated the amount of submission but coffee beer was a newcomer to the big categories so kudos to California that took silver and bronze in that caffeinated category.
(All photos screenshotted from the Brewers Network livestream of the event.) Sorry that I again entered in late. Damn time difference.
Another year of Great American Beer and the Festival that celebrates it, is now past. Brewers and craft beer fans are heading to the airport for flights home. Now it is time to see what was awarded in Denver at the GABF and what I think about it.
For L.A. fans, the two big pieces of news are the brace of silvers that are coming home Smog City nabbed their second medal since opening with their Kumquat Saison in the Belgian-Style Fruit beer category. Julian Shrago and Beachwood added to their trophy case with Mocha Machine in the Coffee beer category.
There were a whopping 92 categories this year plus the Pro-Am beers. The smallest category was the American style Dark Lager with only 21 entries. Fifteen of the categories had over 100 entries with IPA’s again dominating the proceedings with an astounding 336. Followed by Imperial IPA’s with 208! And California wrested the IPS crown back from Oregon as BNS Brewing from Santee took the gold with their Revolver IPA.
Speaking of state bragging rights, California was in the forefront again with 66 total medals (by my count). Including a sweep of the Cream Ale category with Pabst of Los Angeles brewing Washington Iconic beers of Rainier (gold) and Olympia (silver). Dale Brothers from Upland took bronze with Nuff. Colorado parlayed its home field advantage to 35 medals including a gold in the hotly contested Wood and Barrel-Aged Strong Beer category that was won by AC Golden. Oh and Coors Banquet struck gold as well. Oregon hauled in 19 medals and Washington State 12 and it seemed whenever the ABInBev owned 10 Barrel would win that another Bend based brewery would win the next higher medal. A bit of karma perhaps?
Firestone Walker and TAPS were named mid-sized winners and Rip Current from San Diego was tabbed for Very Small Brewing company awards. If you prefer your beer brewed or owned by a large corporation, the Pabst of Los Angeles should be your choice, at least the Brewer’s Association thinks so…
Other assorted notes:
Feral One and Sour Opal picked up medals for Barrelworks in Buellton.
Ritual won big with two gold medals as did Bottle Logic.
Session IPA’s debuted this year and had the 4th highest entry count.
My college town of McMinnville was mentioned with a gold from Golden Valley .
Best beer name was in the Belgian Quadrupel category: Quad Damn It.
BEST BEER outside of GABF
Fresh Hop Ale from Great Divide
Lovely hop aroma. Bold but not aggressive. Cool lacing on the glass. Nicely balanced between hops and malts. Excellent bitter taste. It slightly edges out Elysian’s Loser Pale Ale.