GABF Winners: Rants n Raves

I'm very proud of my hometown boys at Brickstone. They do have an outstanding APA that rivals all others. I'm close enough to the brewery to be able to have a gold medal APA in my hand in 5 mins.

 

Yes, There APA, Porter And Oatmeal Stout is the only thing worth trying. Everything else is hit or miss.

As far as the food goes, its all outstanding, priced right and the servers are smoking hot! It is well worth a trip to Bourbonnais, $6 growler fills on Sunday too.

 

If you need more re-inforcement on the CDA style, I'd recommend you try and get your hands on Hill Farmstead's James.

 

Of all the rants I can't believe you were the first to address this. As far as an APA goes ZD is wrong. Sure, it tastes great but it is no where near to style.

 

I thought the FO/BB was French Oak Bret Brown...that's what it had said in the description of Barrel Select Batch 1.

 

And it's because of this that makes these awards a fucking joke!

 

I haven't read through the 6 pages of posts, so I am probably repeating this. I'm happy to see New Glarus took a gold metal with Hometown Blonde, which is an awesome Pilsner. And they were also deserving of the silver which they took for Staghorn.

 

No poitics involved. All tasting is blind. GABF awards are far more objective than hype-driven BA scores that where vast majority of reviewers don't even know how to properly judge a beer.

 

I would speculate pro-brewers give the GABF awards more weight than they do of the reviews of goobers on Ba. The BA does a helluva job setting up the event and making it run smoothly. If you want to look at who the judges were, it was in the GABF book they give out, as well as who was on the floor and what breweries entered/not on the floor.

Each judging panel is set up of 3 to 4 judges, and they pass on the best 3 beers. If there are 4 or 5 top notch beers, only 3 advance. That's just the way it goes, it's random. And yes, some little brewpub in BFE can make better beer than your homer brewery. Cat 33 is still beer, and as long as it is, the BA will keep it in the competition.

The judges also look for flaws that most consumers won't notice. With all the new breweries the field of competition is going to get tougher and tougher. So to see 1 brewery making a sweep of many medals will be rarer. And that's IF the brewery enters their beer since they're capped now at 10 entries. Plus, a bigger brewery may not be timing their brew schedule to match the deadlines.

So look for trends, if a brewery has been making great beer and winning awards year after year but misses a year, doesn't mean they suddenly suck. Too many factors involved.

 

Did Hill Farmstead participate?? I can't imagine they did, cause they would of needed a wheelbarrow for medals.

 

But Shiner Oktoberfest won the Gold!?!

Cheers!

 

Jack: Shiner is brewed to the higher end of the style guidelines...and as we both know, for U.S. craft beer and its judges, MORE is better

 

Completely disagree. Not bitter enough to do well in American IPA and high hop aroma is now the norm for winning APAs. The ABV argument is moot because it drinks like it could be inder the technical limit, and judges aren't given a spec sheet so they have no idea. Really, this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. 3F is also very clear about not calling it an IPA, and the grey area in-between these styles is pretty broad.

 

Pappy Van Muckle was every bit deserving of a medal! Best beer I had all week

 

Scott,

I am guessing that you are joking.

But on a ‘serious’ note:

· Shiner Oktoberfest: 5.7% ABV, 18 IBUs
· Olde Mecklenburg Mecktoberfest: 5.4% ABV, ? IBUs

Below is from the Shiner website:

“Style:
This festive Marzen-style seasonal has a deep amber color and slightly toasted flavor. The initial rich malty aroma and sweetness fades to a moderately dry, hoppy finish.

Recipe:
Made with the highest-quality Two-Row Barley, Munich and Caramel malts, along with German-grown Hallertau Tradition and Hersbrucker hops.”

Now, in all fairness I have not had the 2012 Shiner Oktoberfest but I have had it in the past (along with a lot of the other Shiner beers: Shiner Bock, Black Bavarian, Cosmos, etc.). I am not in any way anti-Shiner; I think they made good, modest priced beers. Of their beers, the Black Bavarian is my favorite. For my palate, the Shiner Bock tastes amazingly similar to Yuengling Lager (I don’t intend to knock Shiner Bock since Yuengling Lager is an OK beer).

But, for Shiner Oktoberfest to be ‘better’ than Olde Mecklenburg Mecktoberfest (or any other Marzen for that matter) has me scratching my head.

In November I will be in Texas vising family (and attending the Wurstfest in New Braunfels, TX) so I guess I will have to drink some Gold Medal Shiner Oktoberfest and get my palate ‘calibrated’.

Cheers!

Jack

 

Definitely agree. It's a great beer.

 

German Pilsener style is supposed to be hoppier.

Classic German Pilsners are very light straw to golden in color. Head should be dense and rich. They are also well-hopped, brewed using Noble hops such has Saaz, Hallertauer, Hallertauer Mittelfrüh, Tettnanger, Styrian Goldings, Spalt, Perle, and Hersbrucker. These varieties exhibit a spicy herbal or floral aroma and flavor, often times a bit coarse on the palate, and distribute a flash of citrus-like zest--hop bitterness can be high.

So I'll disagree that Sunshine fits the style more. I'll argue that both Prima and Sly Fox Pikeland squarely fit into the German style and both are significantly better than Sunshine......and I'm a Sunshine fan.

 

It is such a shame that their regular line up is so forgettable.

 

Medal stats: CA-49, CO-35, OR-24, PA-17, VA-12, IL/WI-10ea.
2011 stats: CA-51, CO-44, OR-15, PA-7, VA-8.

Some shifting going on, but these were the states that won big last year, some shifting around of medals and a lot must have changed among the other states, but I'm not spending the time to look that info up.

 

The GABF is judged by some of the best brewers and PROFESSIONALS in the world who have been in the business for years. These aren't Joe Homebrewer BCJP judges or Beer Geeks who love under attenuated imperial stouts! They follow strict guidelines and judge accordingly. Sometimes styles "overlap" and beers are on the cusp usually with pales, ipas, dipas, etc....