GABF Heat Map

Wasn't really suggesting that it creates a craft beer nirvana but rather there's an interaction between population density and brewery density such that breweries can't stay in business no matter how good their beers if there isn't a customer base to support them. So where there is a receptive customer base there will be more breweries. Surely they can contribute to the growth of that customer base, but if the customer base isn't receptive or isn't large enough to begin with the business will fail before it can develop a customer base.

So I'd suggest that yes the experimentation may originate with the brewer, but that it isn't sustainable/viable with out a receptive customer base. So yes they tend to go together.

For example, part of the reason that certain regions are more likely to have successful lager breweries appears to be related to the demographics of the customer base. PA for example was a receptive location for many German immigrants who attracted lager brewers to set up business to provide the beers customers preferred. While they originally sold lagers to the German-American populations those beers grew in popularity outside that community as well. Around certain areas of PA there have been lager beers brewed for well over a hundred years and that has continued because there are lots of folks who appreciate good lagers in this state. Indeed the first lager beer brewed in the US was brewed in Philly.

But when it comes to Stone and Iowa, I'm not really thinking that they could have thrived in Iowa and that it took fertile ground which they found/had/helped create in CA but would not have found in Iowa. So I don't think we can truely separate the population of consumers and the nature of that population what's been happening with the growth in flavorful beers the last 10 years or so.

Edit: Your example of the West Coast IPA is a good one but it actually came about because imported hops were more expensive that those grown in the west coast hop growing regions. Those less expensive hops tend to have different flavor profiles which the brewers learned to use, etc. because they were less expensive than importing European hops e.g., Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Anchor Liberty Ale use west coast hops. The rest, as they say, is history.

 

A few things to note here:
Not every brewery gets a shot at GABF. Some got shut out when the fest was full, some didn't care to even try.
Out of the breweries that did gain entry, depending on how they were shipped some beers may have been off. I have listened to podcast interviews with judges who confirm that two months of sitting around in not so ideal conditions does things to a beer, and they experience that en masse at GABF.
While I agree there are some great beers coming out of cali, statistically spaking the area with the highest populace will have the greatest chance of winning with everything else being equal. I would venture a guess that if we compared the number of entries plotted on a heat map vs this map we would see that the two are similar. Now if we had some sort of deviation to make things equal, I would venture a guess that California may not be king.
last, nobody ever gives a damn about GABF unless it somehow benefits their argument.

 

Well actually if you want to know what other folks (mostly trained judges) may think might be a good beer try, the medals tell us that much. Though as you say they don't tell us that the other entries were not good.

 

I seem to be one of the few people who do think GABF medals have merit and value. I was commenting more on the people who have said "who cares if it won a medal at GABF? Beer x is still better". With all that being said, since a person can come to Denver during GABF and taste some of the rarest whales and meet the brewers who make them, and also spend time at the second largest beer fest in the world, I am gonna say Colorado trumps Cali.

 

I absolutely agree they have merit and value given the selection process, etc. They just don't have the significance that some folks like to attribute to them with terms like "best xxx." I'm quite comfortable given what I've learned about the judging etc. that some good beers emerge from the competition successfully. But that doesn't mean they are better than those that weren't entered or those that didn't win after they made it past the first cut.

 

I would be interesting to plot average BA score for a state or region against population to see if there is a correlation. Unfortunately that sounds like a lot of typing in numbers, so I'll leave it for another night.

 

Colorado has a better medal-count per capita and per-brewery. Colorado has more breweries per capita. Colorado consumes more craft beer per capita. Just being a big state with 5x the population is the reason California is so "hot".

But yes California does make some awesome beers please keep sending them here thanks!

But please stop moving here!

 

That was great info, thanks for sharing it........

 

Your facts are wrong thought Colorado neither has the most breweries per capita nor drinks the most craft peer capita oh and GABF is in Colorado so there is that explaining the medals
https://www.brewersassociation.org/statistics/by-state/

 

That's why separating northern and southern California is important. Also, quantity doesn't equal quality!

 

Totally cool! Thanks.

 

Thanks for the link. It proves all my points are correct. California has 38.8 million people; Colorado has 5.6 millIon. You might want to reread what I said.
Breweries per capita: Colorado is 3rd California is 24th.
Medals per capita: you have 7x the population but not 7x the medals.

Check this headline for consumption:
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_29670695/12-beer-consumed-u-s-now-comes-from

As for your final point, it's irrelevant. All the beer judging is done blind, the judges have no idea where the beers they are judging came from.

 

Oops you are right, I did miss read your post. But what I meant is not that there is a bias in favor of Colorado beers at the competition I meant that its held there there are probably a lot of breweries from Colorado that compete in the GABF at least more than many other states.

 

This is very nice of you to invest the time and energy in doing this and then sharing it here.

Thanks!

 

Maybe it's me, but none of those links load for me.

 

This is awesome! It's pretty fascinating seeing the new 'hot' areas grow over the years.