More than 10,000 entries from 57 countries vie for recognition in world’s most prestigious professional beer competition Minneapolis • May 5, 2022 — The Brewers Association (BA)—the not-for-profit trade group dedicated to promoting and protecting America’s small and independent craft brewers—announced the results of the largest international commercial beer competition, the 2022 World Beer Cup® (WBC). The awards were presented in a ceremony Thursday evening at the conclusion of the Craft Brewers Conference® & BrewExpo America® at the Minneapolis Convention Center. Returning after cancellation in 2020 because of the pandemic, the 2022 World Beer Cup was the largest competition to date, with 10,542 entries from 2,493 breweries representing 57 countries. Entries were evaluated by an elite panel of 226 judges from 28 countries. Competition judging took place in 18 sessions over nine days. Judges bestowed 307 out of 309 total possible awards, reflecting the opportunity for one gold, silver, and bronze award in each of 103 beer style categories. No gold or silver was awarded in Category 68: Belgian-Style Witbier. “The World Beer Cup showcases the incredible breadth and talent of the global brewing community,” said Chris Swersey, competition director, World Beer Cup. “Winning an award at this extremely competitive event symbolizes one of the greatest accomplishments in the art of brewing. Congratulations to this year’s winners on their outstanding achievements.” Historically a biennial event, the World Beer Cup competition will move to an annual event beginning in 2023, it was announced. Brewery registration for the 2023 World Beer Cup will open in October 2022, with the awards presented May 10, 2023 at the Craft Brewers Conference in Nashville, Tenn. View the 2022 winners or download a PDF list of the winners. Download 2022 Fact Sheet. COMPETITION HIGHLIGHTS Average number of beers entered per category: 102 Most entered style categories: American-Style India Pale Ale: 384 Juicy or Hazy India Pale Ale: 343 German-Style Pilsener: 254 Wood- and Barrel-Aged Strong Stout: 237 International Pilsener or International Lager: 231 Munich-Style Helles: 202 Number of countries represented: 57 Countries with the most awards: United States: 252 Canada: 14 Germany: 11 Country with the highest winning rate: Ireland (16.67%) First-time country winner: Colombia, Pola Del Pub, Bogotá, for its “Saison Con Miel" Specialty Saison entry The 2022 World Beer Cup competition was made possible in part by the generous support of its sponsors: Presenting Sponsor - Siemens; Partner Sponsors - ABS Commercial, Barth-Haas Group, Fermentis, First Key Consulting, Rahr Malting, and Sahm. ###
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?
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
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
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...
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.
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!
Allagash are Belgian purists - how many other US breweries have the restraint to do witbier the "correct" way: low hops, creamy yet dry, subtle coriander + orange peel, and very lightly tart? I'd expect someone like St Bernardus to place well; maybe they didn't enter...
Well, that was indeed the case for Celis Witbier 'back in the day'. Christine Celis is continuing her father's tradition in Austin. I have not had the fortune to taste the present day beer. I just visited the website to 'discover' they have over a dozen beer brands on tap at the taproom: https://www.celisbeers.com/copy-of-core-beers-1 Cheers! P.S. No way of knowing if Celis submitted a beer to the competition.
The 2022 WBC had no Gold or Silver medals in Category 68: Belgian-Style Witbier despite having 102 Entries. Were really 101 beers so bad as to not medal or were they outside of style guidelines and disqualified?
The final Judges table for this category probably had 9 samples to evaluate, and had been instructed to trust that the Judges in the preliminary and mid rounds had done their jobs advancing the best entries from those flights. It’s unusual, but the organizers have to trust that those 5 trained people came to that consensus for a reason.
Several years back we stopped in and had a Celis White. I was reminded as to how good it used to be, as a beer that exemplifies the style.
I was Happy to see Union out of Baltimore took home silver for their “Blackwing” Scwartzbier. It’s solid.
Allagash won gold for their Tripel. Personally, I’ve never been a huge fan of their take on a Belgian Tripel but to each their own I guess. Their White should have won gold again, that was just weird how they didn’t give our gold or silver for that category.
