Someone please help me understand what distinguishes GABF: Category #33, American-Style Lager, Light Lager or Premium Lager from Category #34, American-Style Specialty Lager or Cream Ale or Lager Obviously, lower calorie "light" beers fall into Category #33--won by regular PBR, not its light version. Henry Weinhard's Blue Boar Pale Ale won the gold in #34--it must be a cream ale. Old Style and Mickey's Malt Liquor placed and showed, respectively, in this category. To compare apples to apples, wouldn't it make more sense to have three distinct categories: a) American-Style Adjunct Lagers b) American-Style Adjunct "Light" Lagers (less than 100 calories per 12 oz.) c) American-Style Malt Liquors (ABV > 5.5%) ...and have "Cream Ales" have its own catagory??
Cream ales should be its category, at least in my opinion. but that would give GABF like 784324784564687654 categories.
Here's the ultimate problem with GABF's "categories" - breweries are the ones who choose which category in which to entry their beer(s). In theory, MillerCoors could enter Miller Lite and Coors Light in the Russian Imperial Stout category. It wouldn't WIN (you know, hopefully ) but they could. So, MC was free to enter the Weinhard beer in such a category - especially given the pretty flexible definition of "cream ale" over the years. So, yeah "it must be a cream ale" is true, but it's only a "cream ale" in the sense that that's what MC decided it was (this year). The "catch-all" categories are obviously there to appease the big brewers (both of which belong to the Brewers Association and pay big bucks for dues [which are based on barrelage] for each of their 20 or so individual breweries) and the winners in these categories have long been ...uh, let's say "amusing". Ah, that right there is why you (and many others) don't get it. You're (logically) thinking the competition should "make sense".
