2015 GABF Winners

Port City as the Small Brewery of the Year?


Seriously??

 

One thing on the value of GABF awards... @drtth has done a great job over the years clearly explaining their limitations, their relative value, etc. No, GABF can't tell us what the best (insert style here) is in America. No, these aren't the be all, end all of beer rankings. Yes, they're a fun way to show us who, on a given day, was adjudged as having made a pretty darn good beer.

All that said, for the folks that want to pitch them altogether or declare them entirely meaningless, I wonder how they feel about homebrew competitions? If you're going to write off GABF, surely you have to do the same with homebrew comps, right? Except for that in those situations, I think most people intuitively accept what we already know -- that they're simply a way of recognizing that, at least in the one batch they submitted, some folks managed to make some pretty good beer. Same thing w/ GABF. No need to lose your shorts over it -- just an opportunity to tip your hat to some brewers for making some good stuff.

 

That has actually showed up in the NoVa area, and I had it about a month ago or less. Very good Saison, in my opinion. In fact, I bought a second bottle. Was happy to see it in the list as well.

 

The theory has been that "the haze" makes it tough to win. At least in many categories. From what I've seen and been told by judges, appearance is one of the easiest ways to weed stuff out in the large categories. It isn't a deal breaker, but we haven't seen any of them win at GABF, WBC, or similar shows. They might also simply not care. Not like they need the publicity. I bet plenty of medal winners would trade their hardware to be a top 10 beer here and elsewhere. When you google most beers, this BA pops up, not the other BA (Brewer's Association).

 

No new england type IPA has ever won a GABF medal. It just doesn't fit their judging criteria. They need to make a new category for this variant. This is one area where the GABF categories are out of touch with developing tastes. There also needs to be a new category for dry hopped sour. There's currently nowhere to fit these beers.

There is also some fairly useless (IMO) overlap in some categories -- American Style Strong Pale Ale and American Style IPA for example.

 

I sure as hell wouldn't fight her. Not even for any of the top beers in the world that I haven't tried yet.

 

Last year or the year before, Hill Farmstead whined on Twitter about not getting any medals at GABF. The tweet(s) were deleted the same day.

 

If you lived in NC you'd be reaching for Burial Brewing Scythe Rye IPA, it's the shit.

 

I agree with Scythe -like Westbook One Claw on steroids. We are now getting regularly in Charlotte.

Funny how people dismiss the results of these competitions when they don't agree with personal tastes and that's fine.

I love Pernicious and it has eclipsed Jade and HD&R which were my prior 1-2 punches from NC. The value of these competitions is that they are blind and the hype/scarcity has been removed--like it or not.

I personally don't have the gene that tastes hype and/or rarity.

 

My only gripe with these awards is (I think) the judges are rating by the beers adherence to style guidelines. I don't care if a beer follows style guidelines, I care about how it tastes

 

Meaningless for the breweries that did not enter...

 

I can drink that all day, and I have!

 

Amen brother. You make a very good point.

 

I happen to like Pernicious as well, I like it more than Jade or Freak, but thats me. Bestway still has the 8/8 pernicious bottling on the floor newer stock is in the back waiting. I'm waiting for the fresher stuff.

 

They have a PNW connection. That being said, they should look into distributing to 2 of the hot spots in WY...Casper and Sheridan.

 

I saw more TX than I thought I would see!

 

Do you really think that being a top 10 beer on an amateur hobbyist site is more important to a professional brewer than recognition from their peers? Is a Top 10 beer on BA really that important?

Would a "Top 10 on BA" logo on a beer label impress more potential customers than a GABF medal? I find that hard to believe.

 

I wish they would list the top 10 for each category.

 

When's the last time anyone camped out or held a festival based around a GABF gold award winning English mild, hefeweizen, or stout? When a person is in a store and looking for a new beer, do you think they're going to hunt through the brewer's guild website and see if they won anything with it? OR are they just going to google the name and see that it has a great/good/bad rating here. You'd be shocked how many casual beer people know about many of the top beers here (and elsewhere) but don't know anything about GABF/WBC medals.

While earning the respect of beer judges is really important to some brewers, the general public is every bit as important. Especially when it comes down to sales. When you look up beer information online as a consumer, the enthusiast sites pull up ahead of most brewery websites, let alone the brewer's guild. Having a high profile on here means a lot in the world of beer sales. In an ideal world you'd want both, but if you had to choose I bet more brewers would take the consumers over judges.