Drink-a-Pint

The World Beer Cup may be the Grammys or the Oscars of the beer industry, if only for the insane number of categories. We’re talking 91 awards ranging from Best Non-Alcoholic Malt Beverage (Radegast Birell, anyone?) to Best American-Style Wheat Wine Ale (that’d be Rubicon Brewing’s Winter Wheatwine). So, if this were a televised awards show, you’d probably have enough time to sample at least 1/4 of the winners during the announcement of the nominees, speeches, commercial breaks and the all-important in memoriam video montage of brewers we’ve lost overt the past year (*sniff*).

Thankfully, for you guys, this is just a blog I crank out while eating lunch, so we’ll keep it short, sweet and alcoholic.

So, what’s the World Beer Cup? It’s something like this: Brewers from five continents earned awards from an elite international panel of judges. The seventh bi-annual competition presented awards to brewers from 21 countries ranging from Australia and Italy to Bolivia and Japan. This year, 644 breweries from 58 countries and 45 U.S. states vied for awards with 2,864 beers entered in 91beer style categories. The top three entries in each category won gold, silver and bronze awards. In addition, the competition gives “Champion Brewery” and “Champion Brewer” awards in each of five brewery categories based on the awards won by each brewery. Judges from 21 countries participated in this year’s competition, working in teams to conduct blind tasting evaluations of the beers and determine the awards. Drawn from the ranks of professional brewers and brewing industry experts, 129 judges came mostly from international breweries, with 64 percent from outside the United States.

And, the winners are…

Brewers Association World Beer Cup 2008 Champion Brewery, Small Brewpub Category
Bend Brewing Company

Brewers Association World Beer Cup 2008 Champion Brewery, Large Brewpub Category
Pelican Pub & Brewery

Brewers Association World Beer Cup 2008 Champion Brewery, Small Brewing Company Category
Port Brewing Company and The Lost Abbey

Brewers Association World Beer Cup 2008 Champion Brewery, Mid-Size Brewing Company Category
Privatbrauerei Hoepfner GmbH

Brewers Association World Beer Cup 2008 Champion Brewery, Large Brewing Company Category
Blue Moon Brewing Company
Warren Quilliam

Some of my favorite categories:

Category 3: American-Style Wheat Beer

• Gold - Crystal Wheat Ale, Pyramid Breweries Inc., Seattle, Washington
• Silver - Shiner Dunkelweizen, Spoetzl Brewery, Shiner, Texas
• Bronze - Spanish Peaks Crystal Weiss, Spanish Peaks Brewing Co., Poison, Montana

Love the wheat beers and love that Spanish Peaks is brewed in a town either named after one of my favorite hair-metal bands or something that will kill you if consumed. Either way…

Category 6: Fruit and Vegetable Beer

• Gold - Redoak Framboise Froment, Redoak,Sydney, Australia
• Silver - Blue Moon Chardonnay Blonde, Blue Moon Brewing Co., Golden, Colorado
• Bronze - Alaskan Jalapeno Imperial IPA, Alaskan Brewing Co., Juneau, Alaska

The beer my friends make fun of me for drinking. No worries… they’ll secretly be craving a sip of Blue Moon Chardonnay Blonde if it ever makes it to the East Coast.

Category 13: Experimental Beer (Lager or Ale)

• Gold - Ichabod, Alpine Beer Co., Alpine, California
• Silver - Iwate Kura Beer Oyster Stout - B, Sekinoichi Shuzo Co. Ltd., Iwate, Japan
• Bronze - Veritas 002, Port Brewing Co. and The Lost Abbey, San Marcos, California

Is that really oyster in the beer? Wow…

Category 22: German-Style Pilsener

• Gold - Trumer Pils, Trumer Brauerei Berkeley, Berkeley, California
• Silver - Waldhaus Diplom Pils, Privatbrauerei Waldhaus Joh. Schmid GmbH,Weilheim/Waldhaus, Germany
• Bronze - Troegs Sunshine Pils, Troegs Brewing Co., Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Always nice to see that some of the world’s best German-style pilsener is brewed in the keystone state.

Category 33: American-Style Light Lager

• Gold - Old Milwaukee Light, Pabst Brewing Co., Woodridge, Illinois
• Silver - Lone Star Light, Pabst Brewing Co., Woodridge, Illinois
• Bronze - Natural Light, Anheuser-Busch Inc., St. Louis, Missouri

Ladies and gentlemen, the awards category for those of you who feel that beer is best served in a six-pack of cans.

Category 34: American-Style Lager

• Gold - Tooheys Extra Dry, Tooheys Pty Limited, Lidcombe, Australia
• Silver - Michelob Lager, Anheuser-Busch Inc., St. Louis, Missouri
• Bronze - Narragansett Lager, Narragansett Brewing Co., Providence, Rhode Island

So, the best American-style lager is from Australia? Whew… we just can’t get anything right anymore.

Category 41: Belgian-Style White (or Wit)/Belgian-Style Wheat

• Gold - Hoegaarden, InBev Belgium N.V./S.A., Jupille-sur-Meuse, Belgium
• Silver - Ommegang Witte, Brewery Ommegang, Cooperstown, New York
• Bronze - Mill Street Belgian-Style Wit, Mill Street Brewery, Toronto, Canada

I’ve heard grumblings that Hoegaarden isn’t as good as it used to be, but I still get a smile on my face when I walk into a bar and see it on tap.

Category 43: Belgian-Style Pale Ale

• Gold - No Gold awarded.
• Silver - Belgian Blonde, Black Diamond Brewing Co., Concord, California
• Bronze - Special, Brewery De Ryck, Herzele, Belgium

Hmm… do you think the judges were just bombed by this point and forgot about the gold winner?

Still 48 categories left plus all the ones I skimmed over, so be sure to check out the complete list @ http://www.beertown.org/events/wbc/winners_list/winners_2008.html