Brewer Bling

At this year’s Great American Beer Festival (GABF) in Denver, Colo., it was virtually impossible to not bump into someone wearing gold, silver or bronze around their neck after the Saturday awards ceremony. That’s because roughly one out of every 13 beers entered at the GABF won. That’s a lot of brewer bling!

Same goes for its sister event, the World Beer Cup, which also dishes out gold, silver or bronze to around one out of every 11 entrants every other year. At North American Brewers Association’s annual competition, nearly one out of every six beers entered wins. In Rhode Island’s Great International Beer Competition—that’s primarily New England entrants—just over one out of every five beers entered wins! At the 2008 Australian Beer Awards, apparently nearly everyone wins—we tried to tally the winners, but had to stop, as there were so many our heads began to ache. And with the World Beer Championship, organized by the Beverage Testing Institute, pretty much all you have to do is enter and you’re guaranteed some form of “win.”

And by enter, we mean fork over some hard-earned cash. Depending on the competition, entry fees could be as low as $15 but can soar up to hundreds of dollars per beer entry—even more if shipping is involved, or sometimes in order to buy the rights to brag about your win. Of course, there are costs involved and they need to be covered. We get that.

Now, we don’t mean any disrespect to any of the organizations who host these competitions, nor are we questioning their judging methods, and we’re sure that their intentions are good and making money isn’t a bad thing, but do consumers really care about these medals? We’re guessing no, mainly because most brewers don’t market their wins, thus most of their consumers will never hear about them.

And we don’t mean to diminish the feeling of accomplishment a brewer might get from being recognized by judging peers or other industry professionals with worthy palates. It’s good to get props in a fraternal setting. These competitions also give the “little guy” a chance to be recognized on the national or international beer stage. We should be happy for any deserving brewer who gets accolades. And we are. And even though many consider these competitions to be flawed, at the very least we should also be happy that they help spread the word about beer. And we are.

Still, many consumers and industry types also argue that the value of these competitions have become diluted by too many winners and strong regional bias.

At the end of the day, medals don’t sell beer. They don’t pay the bills. And you never overhear a consumer say: “Hey, Bob, you know that beer you’re drinking there is a gold medal winner from 1992.” Because, other than those involved with the competition, no one else really cares.

And perhaps we’re biased (OK, just a bit), but we’d argue that dozens to hundreds to even thousands of consumers (as flawed as we sometimes are) saying they like a beer is far more powerful. There are probably no “Hey, Bob …” scenarios here either—the palates aren’t those of trained professionals (actually, some are), and you can’t hang the win around your neck—but we’re talking about honest feedback and some good old-fashioned word-of-mouth, grassroots-style, zero-cost marketing by people who purchased, probably enjoyed and will most likely revisit the beer in hand—i.e., spend more money on good beer. You know… the stuff that helps sell beer. Pay the bills. Promote the industry.

Speaking of which, the people have spoken! Keep on reading to hear what they had to say. Will you care? Will anyone care? Perhaps not, but a positive consumer impact has already been made.

Respect Beer. ■