GABF Winners: Rants n Raves

especially to Tap It wtf sumone was payin sumone under the table

 

i live in san luis, this is the biggest outrage ever. sumone got paid

 

As the Dude once said, "Well, that's just like... your opinion, man."

You can't take this stuff too seriously.

 

Good to see Holy City Brewing from Charleston take home a gold for their Pluff Mud Porter. I was at the brewery when they were on UPS.com and got confirmation that their packages made it to Colorado (their office computer is behind the bar). Congrats again!

 

Breweries that went medal less at the GABF Stone, Great Divide, Oskar Blues, Bells, Founders, and Dogfish! They are going to have one hell of a pity party!

 

kona longboard lager haha.

I was in HI all last week and that was as close to craft as they had outside of one sweet place called Pints and Jiggers. Kona makes some awful and boring beers.

 

why is there no gold for category 75?

 

the fact that Sierra Blanca's Nut Brown won gold surprises me... it isn't very good.

 

St. Louis area picked up 3 medals after bringing home 0 last year (not counting Busch Light). Good things are happening here. How Charleville's Box of Chocolate didn't medal is crazy to me... those chocolate beers that did win must be darn delicious.

 

Really? I get it if this is just some sort of way of giving a compliment to HF, but I can't take it as a serious question. They make good beer, but that doesn't mean GABF gold... or silver... or bronze. I think New Glarus should take gold for Belgian Red every year and silver for Raspberry Tart. Those beers are so perfectly consistent (and awesome) it's almost unfathomable, yet some years neither place and things like Leinie's Berry Weiss wins gold. Some years awesome beers win, some years OK beers win.

GABF judging palates are more stylistic while consumer palates are hedonistic. That said, a true-to-style, world class beer does not make a GABF medal winner make and does not a GABF medal winner make not.

 

If the judges can't decide on a clear favorite, they forgo medals.

 

To be more precise, from their web site

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Everyone should be so lucky to get to Jackson Wy.

 

Last year some local Dallas beer writers had an Oktoberfest-off, pitting 20 beers, both foreign and domestic against each other. They booted Shiner in the early rounds but one of the writes wrote a mea culpa of sorts a few weeks ago after learning about a Shiner Oktoberfest 2011 victory in Europe.

http://www.examiner.com/article/sizing-up-shiner-s-award-winning-oktoberfest

 

They changed the entry limit to 10 beers. I'm only speculating, but Sun King won a bunch of medals in 2011 but didn't win small brewery and brewmaster of the year or it could be that there are so many new breweries open that they didn't want to be overwhelmed with entries. Local breweries in CO have an advantage to send a lot of entries, due to the close proximity.

 

So many of you are missing a lot of what the judges are having to do here.

Let's take that APA category... First off, you don't know what batch was sent. MANY brewers out there will brew a specific batch to be sent to the table. That batch might have been brewed from start to finish by the Master Brewer and not a shift brewer(s). (That's what I do most of the time) That batch might have been brewed with more or less of one ingredient or another.... you get my point. May not be the same beer at all. Then, beers with flaws are knocked off the table pretty quickly. I myself, am really sensitive to phenols, diacetyl, fusels, and oxidation. Someone else might be sensitive to sulfur compounds, but rest assured, between 3 or 4 judges, the flaws WILL get knocked off the table, if not in the first round, certainly by the second. Again, you don't know what was sent. I personally am bewildered whenever Firestone doesn't get silver and gold in this category because, in my mind, those are the epitome of the style. But alas, I wasn't at that table and I don't know what they were trying...

Then, the judges have to find what they believe is not only closest to style but also a compelling beer; something that hits all of the bullet points and then some. Sometimes this means, without any data in front of them, that a beer like a 9.5% ABV DIPA can win in the IPA category. Sometimes it means that a beer like Zombie Dust wins in the APA category.

I can't emphasize this enough. NONE of you know what was on those tables. You didn't try it. Maybe the Shiner O-fest was the single greatest beer to ever come out of the Spoetzl brewery and they put 1/2 gram of cocaine in each bottle. (Note, I don't believe any brewery would ever do such a thing) You just don't know what the judges were trying at the table, but whether that judge was Tomme Arthur or Charlie Papazian himself, it is exceedingly unfair for all of you to critique them or the competition director for results that you don't agree with. I don't "agree" with all of the results EVER. I'll go around and try some of the beers that beat mine out and scratch my head. That being said, I know that the judges did their best. And I know that the competition director has done the best job of putting together a beer competition that anyone has ever done.

Whether you pay attention to the awards or not, getting medals can and does often mean increased attention from the press and distributors and subsequently growth. I would not say that it is because of our medals that we grew 300% last year, but it certainly didn't hurt. I hope that those of you that truly love beer continue to support the GABF by coming at least every few years. As was pointed out on RB in a related thread, this is a money loser for all the breweries that attend. We're not doing it for ourselves, we're doing it for all of you and to support the BA and it's attempts to continue to champion craft beer in this country.

 

It all seems like a bunch of BS to me. Enjoy your Shiners!!

 

Did they enter any beers? It is very possible they entered very few or even no beers into competition.

 

I agree with some medal winners and don't with others... some I haven't had. At the end of the day, who cares?

People's reaction can be summed up this way: If my brewery won, GABF is awesome... congrats!; If my brewery didn't win, GABF is shit.