2022 World Beer Cup Winners Announced

I'm confused. How can 10 Barrel and Devil's Backbone (AB-InBev) be involved in this? Are there multiple definitions of "small and independent" that I'm not aware of?

 

The WBC is organized by the BA, but is not exclusively for BA members.

 

Most bizarre decision to give Allagash White a bronze and have it be the only witbier to medal in a category with 102 entries.

 

This is likely because it was the only one to meet style guidelines. They don't issue every medal if the beers don't meet standards.

 

All the best NA beers are from the States? Great, must test!

Category 14: Non-Alcohol Beer - 123 Entries
Gold: Golden Lager, Grüvi, Denver, CO
Silver: Non-Alcoholic Black Butte, Deschutes Brewery, Bend, OR
Bronze: Parallel, Southern Grist Brewing Co., Nashville, TN

 

Excellent to see MadTree bring home some hardware for Ziegler and Legendary Lager!

 

Nice to see San Diego dominating the American IPA category.

 

Nice to see my favorite beer in the world get recognition:

Category 55: International Pale Ale - 90 Entries
Gold: Hello, LA, Highland Park Brewery, Los Angeles, CA

 

Damn 101 breweries messed that up pretty badly, haha.

 

Well, more likely they were trying to "innovate" or "put their own twist on it". But, these higher level competitions have clearly defined boxes to check. Getting outside the box probably won't get a brewery a medal.

 

TIL Morgan Territory Brewing makes award winning lagers. I believe I will have to do some personal investigation.

 

Launch pad has been killing it lately. Ratio has been on my radar as well. Probably time to check them out...

 

Hey! I've had TWO of the winning beers!!

 

Historically, in categories where they have awarded one or two of the three available medals, they have awarded these in any combination (Gold, Silver or Bronze), as well as the three possible two medal combinations (G + S, G + B, or S + B). Based on their criteria, the judges indicated that it either varied slightly from the style parameters and or has minor defects.

https://www.worldbeercup.org/about/award-criteria-judging/

Odd because this is Allagash White we are talking about, and this beer previously won gold in 1998, 2010, 2012 and Silver in 2004 (and Bronze in 2002). Perhaps they got a slightly off batch, just seems odd Allagash White was not good enough for a Gold or Silver in the category they have dominated.

 

And, I have FB friends that were judges for this (although I don't know if any of them were on the Wit panels), and some, for lack of a better term, amazement has been expressed that Allagash White, is one of the exemplars the guides give as an example to define the style. Is it Judge Lotto? An off year? Batch variation? We don't know.

Every beer that's entered gets the tasting notes from the judges back (from each round), and the breweries find out what the judges found right and wrong.

This feedback is why a lot of breweries enter these things: they may or may not care about winning the award, but getting clear, clean, blind, unbiased feedback on their beers is well worth the dollars spent in entering each beer.

 

Or those beers could have had obvious faults: oxidised, DMS, diacytel, infectedetc. A beer with a fault isn't going to win a medal no matter how true to style it is.

 

Right, in which case the brewery messed up.

 

Happy to see Pizza Port get recognized: Their beers are a great value and, IMHO, been underrated. SlicenPint deal is awesome! Love their Carlsbad location!

 

Wow, I am missing out on a lot of good beers - nearly everyone is not available where I am.