Biggest 'upset' at 2012 World Beer Cup

I don't see an "American style Barley Wine" on there, unless I'm just missing it. American b-wines are way too hoppy to be to style in plain ol' Barley Wine, which the criteria are based off English styles. Even at GABF you'll see a lot of "barley wines" winning Imperial Red. I think Hog Heaven has won some medals as an Imperial Red as well. Kind of tough to categorize some American style beers as they really don't fit into world or BJCP guidelines, Imperial Red is a bit of a catch-all of sorts for very strong and very hoppy beers. IMHO, I kind of like how this category is developing more and more, because again IMHO, a lot of what we call "barley wines" are more like what a IIIPA would be, if it existed as a recognized style.

 

Came here to post exactly the same point about sours. The winners of these beer fests directly benefit from who enters, and more accurately, who does not. While Boon makes a solid and respectable geuze, it is NOT even in the world's top 10 (in blind tasting formats) if all geuze makers enter the equation. The same point certainly applies all other style categories as well.

 

American-Style Sour Ale (Category 18)

Gold: Bend Ching Ching
Silver: Allagash Mattina Rossa
Bronze: Russian River Supplication

Don't get me wrong, I like Ching Ching. But I would take the RR or Allagash over it any day.

And to the OP saying he hadn't heard of any of the American IPA medal winners- Fat Head's Head Hunter has won Brewing News' National IPA Challenge two out of the last three years!

 

Sam Adams had it at the Pints for Prostates event the day before GABF last year.

 

Congrats to Fremont!! Bronze in the Bourbon-Wood barrel strong beer category is great. Bourbon Abominable is an amazing beer!! I already have a case stashed away..and was drinking it on tap yesterday

 

My last King Henry was about 2 months ago, opened my 2011 Utopias the other night and I can say that they are both crazy delicious. I feel like if you were to freeze distill King Henry you would end up with something similar to Utopias (I know, Utopias is actually fermented). Similar flavor profiles, but I'd give the nod to Utopias.

 

Utopias is on a whole other level than King Henry. King Henry is a great BA barleywine, but the hype on this site for it is ridiculous.

 

Congrats to St. Arnold out of Houston for their 3 wins, including a Silver for Endeavour in the IIPA category.

 

I think it's also worth noting that these kinds of competitions don't just award "goodness". As I understand it, a beer's compliance with relatively fixed standards for the style plays a large part in its performance. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've seen years where no gold medal is awarded for a certain style because none of the beers nailed it. That said, as long as there are characteristics which define a style, I don't see anything wrong with trying to find who does it best, even if it isn't a style beer geeks gawk over.

 

　
Category 42: American-Style Cream Ale or Lager, 23 Entries
Gold: Prestige, Brasserie Nationale d’Haiti, Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Silver: Old Style, Pabst Brewing Co., Allentown, PA
Bronze: Milwaukee’s Best, Miller Brewing Co., Golden, CO

When my father sees that Old Style took 2nd, I'll never hear the end of it.

 

3) I've never heard of any of the 3 medal winners from the ever popular American-style IPA category (most entries at 150). I guess that means more award winning beer to seek out, but I expected to see a more familiar name on that list.
I had never heard of the gold medal winner, but Head Hunter and Elevated have been at the top of many recent lists. Both have won medals at the GABF the past few years. Fathead's is ramping up production and distro so we should be seeing a lot more soon, not sure about the others.

 

We don't get to see the entrants
We don't get to see the judges

 

1) Because the beers are tasted blind by professionals who don't buy BA hype, and probably don't even know that it's a top rated beer at all, even if they were told what it was.
2) They enter as four different breweries, and none of them won enough points to get an overall award.
3) Trust me, you want to try these beers. Any IPA that medals at WBC is worth tracking down. It's a hell of a style to come out on top in. Also, goes to show how many amazing local IPAs never really get out or get any hype.
4) No. Why would you not include a widely made beer style just because some beer geeks look down there nose on it?

 

I think not disclosing the entrants makes a lot of sense. It allows us to focus on the winners and their due praise, instead of grumbling about who didn't make a good showing. And from what I've seen, the judges at WBC are some of the best beer-tasters in the world, and I would take their opinions over 99% of normal BAs any day. Regardless, you have to take the results in the proper context of what a medal win actually means for a beer. It's a different animal altogether than a BA ranking and shouldn't be compared too closely.

 

My girlfriend is fond of saying that these things are subject to the Pepsi Challenge flaw, that is that in a small taste you prefer different things (in that case sweetness) than you do over a full-size (ie normal) serving. That combined with no one's palate being useful at distinguishing between dozens of the same style of beer in a single sitting and the fact that this all done "rating to style" basically means that the entire process is hilariously meaningless.

I think that, in general, the desire to quantify the unquantifiable is something people just innately have (some people, at least), and every method for doing it is flawed. A method like BA's is probably less flawed than the BJCP (in that you're generally talking full servings, and I'm not really convinced that a blind taste test is actually "better" than unblind, etc).

 

An English brewery won best "Barrel-aged sour". I don't think there's anything more aberrant than that.

 

Have you had the beer? The brewer is an American, and the style is basically written for new-world sour ales.

 

Yeah, last year. Is the head-brewer of Lovibonds American? I didn't know that.

Edit: Actually, it was at the end of 2010.

 

I was surprised by Utopias as well. I had some at GABF last year, and while not the best forum to fully appreciate a beer, I was confident in saying that it wasn't as amazing as some claim. I'd take many barrel-aged beers over it. It may be smooth considering the abv on it, but it's still a hot beer overall.

The other thing though, is that SA has made many incarnations of Utopias over many years, so maybe they had an exceptionally good batch and that was the one that won the medal.

The sad thing which many have touched on already is that not every brewery enters these competitions. Some simply don't care, or maybe don't see any justification in the cost to ship their beer across the country/world to compete. Someone like Cantillon doesn't need to win any medals - they know their beer is amazing, we all know it, and they cannot make enough to meet demand as it is (and are not expanding either way) - so what's the point in Cantillon sending their sublime creations to a competition where it will be served in a manner that does injustice to the beer or the spirit in which it is meant to be consumed?

I am sure that all winners - known or unknown to most of us - are still very solid beers. So cheers and congrats to all who did manage a win (esp to my local OH breweries - Hoppin' Frog and Fat Heads esp).

 

have tried, and would take KH over the Utopia any day. The Utopia tasted almost like Cointreau.