2015 GABF Winners

No gold medal in the pumpkin beer category? Thought that was kind of funny/interesting.

Also, aside from Firestone, I was somewhat surprised more of the conventional 'heavy hitter' breweries didn't medal. That said, it's extremely cool to see so many new breweries - or at least new to me - taking home some honors.

 

This IMO is where NoDa dropped the ball. The last HDR I had was in July and it was fresh and it sucked, I drain poured it. I emailed NoDa and they kindly replaced it with a fresh 4 pk, unfortunately it was still off center. What I had in July was a shadow of what it was pre Denver win, that beer was truly special. The post win fallout and demand was off the charts, really hard to get stuff. They changed systems I believe to increase capacity, but IMO it's never been close to what it was. Bestway doesn't even do runs anymore, then last stuff I saw just sat for a while, not worth the drive to Charlotte right now. They did it once I'll wait for them to fix it.

 

From the web site.

"Gold
A world-class beer that accurately exemplifies the specified style, displaying the proper balance of taste, aroma and appearance.

If judges believe that no beer in the category meets the quality and style-accuracy criteria, they may elect not to award a medal. Judges may award a beer with a silver or bronze medal and yet not award a gold medal."

As far as the heavy hitter breweries that don't medal, how does one know that they even entered? Some breweries might decide not to enter as they are very busy with brewery expansion, or other activities, or just miss the entry deadline.

 

Bone Head has been bottled for a while now

 

Kudos to Fatheads and bringing home the Gold once again!

Congrats to all the Ohio breweries that brought home medals as well!

 

I do gotta say that Ohio's been slaying the hop categories over the last couple years. We trip all over ourselves trying to trade for New England gems...maybe we should be making friends in Ohio first.

 

Wow, a total of 4 medals for AZ! I suppose it's better than 0. California? - 67. Nice. So, uhm, drink regional !

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but the turbid hazy IPA's being put out by the NE breweries would not win at GABF for not being made to the "style"....really it comes down to preference. I do love White Rajah, but ill take a NE IPA any day....

 

Basically. When did they start a "Field Beer" category?

 

I think @Domingo said it better than I could. While awards are great, at the end of the day you want to sell your product aka "put butts in the seats". Its nice to have a medal, but I don't really see that selling you more beer. It might open some distribution doors, but not much beyond that.

I think it was said previously, but there isn't a way to know all the entries for each category. When the winners are announced, we do not know who they "beat". So for example, we do not know who all entered into the American-Style Wheat Beer With Yeast category(I picked that out more because I think they are really stretching out some of these categories). If you had a great selling beer of this style, why do you need to enter into a contest like GABF? The beer already sells. So if some Joe Schmoe beer from Timbuktu wins in this category, who even knows IF one of the well known craft breweries even ENTERED a beer in that category?

 

My local small brewery, only open for a little more than a year, medaled the first time they entered. They are ecstatic about winning. I will ask if they see a bump in sales over the next few months, as they are not a destination brewery, yet,mlocated in a town of 6000.

 

I don't know enough about the judging criteria, but appearance is just one component of a rating, so theoretically it would be possible for a hazy beer that's strong in every other category to win? Someone who has judged before can prob better speak to that than me.

What I'd say generally is that I have a hard time making a blanket statement for entire styles, i.e., "I'd drink a West Coast-style IPA any day over an Ohio IPA". To me, simply being of a particular style (or take on a style) doesn't make a beer good. Lotta nice West Coast, Mid-Coast, No-Coast (what up, New Glarus?!), East Coast hops...and a lotta under-delivering ones as well. YMMV and all that, of course

 

Just curious, have you tried a Fatheads Hop Juju or Columbus Bodhi or Creeper?

 

I fully believe that medals help the visibility for small breweries. There are several winners in CO that most people don't know, at least outside of their local area. They're all over social media now. I just don't believe those medals are as valuable as a hyped-up beer on BA. Especially if the medal is in a style like American Wheat, American Blonde, Altbier, etc.
IPA, DIPA, etc. could be very different. Those tend to make breweries destinations in a hurry.
None of these are likely to make any random brewpub compete with Sierra Nevada or New Belgium, but they *could* be the next Toppling Goliath, Fremont, Funky Buddha, etc.

 

The problem with our IPAs here is they are too easy to get for the fanboys to get excited about. I'm not complaining though, as I rarely trade any more and really don't see the point these days.

 

Local brewery Logboat won gold for Belgian Pale ale. They just started canning/distro this year, and the gold medal winner was not one of those that got canned. I bet it will now. Now I can totally justify sending them as extras, lol.

 

Winning has been a curse for a few local CO breweries. They won for beers that are hard/expensive to make and now people expect them to be on all the time.

 

Between Fat Heads and Hoof Hearted, I completely agree ^^^I used to trade for NE hops, which are fantastic; however, these two Ohio breweries do IPAs/DIPAs so well that I'd rather save the FedEx expense and drink local.

 

@BeerVikingSailor Hoping to try Hop Juju at some point. Curious as to what months it's brewed/distributed?

 

After trying so many sought after IPA's (and being very satisfied), I'm happy sticking to these OH hops. Fat Head's, Hoof Hearted, Brew Kettle, and even some Cincy draft only stuff (50W Punch You in the EyePA) are straight killing it.