Do beers awards influence your purchasing?

If a beer wins a medal at the GABF I would indeed be motivated to try it if it was available for sale near me. Winning a Gold, Silver of Bronze at the GABF means this beer was deemed 'worthy' by a panel of experts in competition with many other brands.

Cheers!

 

And, crucially (for me, anyway), in a blind tasting, so no brand reputation influence (good or bad).

 

I think it would depend on who was judging (the judges' qualifications), what standards were used (GABF publishes their judging guidelines), and how the competition was organized.

 

It would give me reason to consider it, seeing a GABF, WBC, or WA Beer Award attached to it. Probably buy it if it were to be a less popular style that I like. Or if it is a style I may not prefer I'll get it just to educate myself on it to try a solid example as I may have had only crappy offerings of that style previously.

I agree that winning the local beer fest in a tiny town is not going to sway me but the bigger ones of course will carry some weight for me.

 

Yes!

 

Check the competition and who they beat

Prestige, brewed in Haiti, boasts that they won the World Beer Cup Gold Medal twice. In 2000 for American-Style Lager (Labatt Blue 2nd, MGD Light 3rd) and in 2012 for American-Style Cream Ale or Lager (Pabst Old Style 2nd, Milwaukee's Best 3rd)

Having had many of them I have to agree that Prestige is better than Milwaukee's Best.

 

Depends on the style for me. Winning awards for ever changing styles like IPAs and Stouts means little to me because some of the best stuff is "off-style" and will never win. However, when someone wins gold for a Pilsner or Helles or English Porter, then that gets my interest. Nothing like a well-executed traditional beer.

 

I agree that the credentials of the judges makes the importance of that gold medal (or the silver or bronze) to let that/those beers stand out among the competition.

However, in a recent thread with similar discussion as this thread (https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/award-winning-beers.610324/) there was a post that stated that the judging in the various categories is frequently so close that it takes a little bit of luck to be the winner. To me that means there is a winner (plus the two other medalists) who can brag, but it was not so much of a standout beer that it is in an exclusive club. To me, it's not worth seeking out if you're pretty sure you can easily get a beer that was the silver or bronze winner, or even a local beer that you know is a standout itself by your own standards.

 

Jess, you missed the most obvious one.... PBR!

 

As a whole, I wouldn't say beer medals intrinsically motivate me to select or try a specific beer.

This is due in part to three reasons:

1. I've drank enough beer, many of which having won awards, and not found it to indicate a higher level of enjoyment for me.
2. I don't know enough about the various beer competitions to say highly regard one and disregard others (that's on me, but based on #1 and #3, I don't care to research them).
3. Not knowing the competitors weakens my view of the medal, having no context with which the winner was compared.

The latter reason stems from my sports background. A 'podium' finish, while the goal, isn't always equal given changes in competition and conditions year-to-year.

 

A ribbon? A single ribbon? One solitary single fuckin' ribbon?
Like to tie a little girl's hair up with?
What the fuck kinda "award" is that, anyway?
Now a Medal - that's a prize.
Jiggle it in your pocket, against your pen knife.
Drill a hole in it and put it on your key chain or have your wife wear in on a necklace.


(Actually, I didn't want to get into the "Did Pabst really win a ribbon?" controversy. They started putting blue ribbon around the neck of the Best Select bottles in 1882 (before the change of the company name to Pabst) but claimed (or used to) it represented their win against Anheuser-Busch at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.)

 

This is how you wear a medal (President Camacho is stylin'):

 

If I was new to a certain style and wanted to try a proper representation of that style, I think one that had a couple of medals for that style would be one to look for. I think these would give you the best example of how that style should look, feel, smell and taste.

 

What are your thoughts about the European Beer Star competition?

Cheers!