The World Beer Cup is a bit of a car crash of a competition with far too many categories, and beers being entered in categories which you would feel they don't belong in. There also seems to be an inordinately large amount of medals for the big boys.
Naturally the amount of beer entered is a tiny fraction of what is actually being produced in the World, with entries from these shores even more so. Having said that, it's still nice for a beer to be recognised by winning. The brewers obviously want to win or they wouldn't enter. Having said that though, I guess even being there is useful for getting your products known.
So it's hats off to Roosters of Knaresborough for winning category 51 English-Style Summer Ale, for YPA and to BrewDog of Fraserburgh, Scotland for winning category 16 Wood and Barrel Aged Strong Beer for Paradox Grain.
These are two breweries I hold in high stead and have discussed on this blog before. Congratulations to them both.
For those who can be bothered to look through the 91 categories, the full list is here.
9 comments:
And you have the gold medal winner from Nøgne ø waiting in your cellar, too!
Interesting opinion on World Beer Cup. Both Beer Comps that I have judged at use World Beer Cup style guidelines and categories.
It seems to me that lots of categories raises the potential for there to be a 'right fit' slot for a beer which is a good thing.
The usual criticism is that there aren't enougth categories (like the lack of Czech styles) and that many are over American in their conception, although of course it is an American comp. A friend of mine has just judged at World Beer Cup for the first time, I'm keen to hear how it went.
Brewdog beers have just come into NZ, I have Riptide, Hoprocker, Punk IPA and Hardcore IPA in my cellar right now. I haven't tasted any of them but I am looking forward to them.
I'm now a little tiddly and want to rant about this and the how-many-beers-in-a-fest post.
So I won't, and I'll wait til I'm fully sober.
Which, according to my calendar, should be 24th September 2009.
Fair enough, the World isn't ready for a tiddly St Georges Day post from you anyway Simon.
Kieran - Good luck with the BrewDog beers - I liked those I've had. I think that because certain styles are broken down (i.e English-Style X, American-Style X) that brings about the argument that there are not enough styles because there could be Southern Hemisphere Style X as well. Whereas if there was just Style X that would be sufficient, and cover the whole range.
I hope that makes sense because it probably looks confusing written down.
Just had Brewdog Hoprocker, it was terrible, diacetyl bomb. Hope the rest are better.
As for having style X to cover the whole range I think that would make judging a lot harder and a lot less fair, comparing apples and pears is a lot harder and less fair than comparing a really sweet apple with a medium sweet apple.
Is it a surprise to see that the Australian Toohey's Extra Dry won gold in the American-Style Lager category? I'm a bit confused.
Not really. Australian lagers tend to be low on hop flavour and aroma, medium to low on malt with a high percentage of adjunct resulting in a muted commercial beer.
glad Rooster's picked up an award - I find Sean Franklin's beers the most consistent in terms of quality of all I can get my hands on - in particular the YPA.
I really like coffee flavored beer specially baileys..Can someone give me other coffee flavored beer aside from bailey's. Thanks.
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