I keep forgetting to write about this. Earlier this year I was asked to help judge for the World Beer Awards, which are put on by the former UK beer magazine Beers of the World, which is now published only online at Tasting Beers. They separated the beers into regions and Stan Hieronymus chaired the America’s region, along with me and Eric Warner.
We were each sent four large boxes filled with bubble-wrapped bottles or cans with a number assigned to each and the labels and even crowns obscured by labels and stickers. They were then separated into five broad categories: pale ale, dark ale, lager, stout & porter, and wheat beer. Then within each of those five, they were further subdivided by style. I don’t know how the rest of the judges did it, but I invited friends with judging experience and/or beer knowledge over to help taste them and bounce descriptors off one another and also had a volunteer steward to help keep the beers as blind as possible, but each beer’s numbered score came strictly from me.
The other two regions were Europe (chaired by Jeff Evans) and Asia (chaired by Bryan Harrell) with Roger Protz overseeing the entire process. In stage 2, the chairmen re-tasted all the regional winners and then a final round was held to determine the overall winners. It was great fun and the results are certainly interesting with a lot of beers with great reputations — and personal favorites — doing quite well. Because participation was not universal (that is, not every brewery submitted beers for judging) there are, of course, many beers not represented which may or may not have done as well or even better than the winners and I certainly hope more breweries will enter their beers next year. But within the group of what was submitted, it’s a pretty damn good list.
Here are the big winners in each of the Five main categories:
- Pale Ale: Deschutes Red Chair NWPA
- Dark Ale: Unibroue 17
- Lager: Primator Premium
- Stout & Porter: Minoh Beer Imperial Stout
- Wheat Beer: Weihenstephaner Vitus
The rest of the winners within each style and also the regional winners can be found on the Tasting Beers website.
I didn’t know this going in, but they actually published a small book with all the winners, including a mash-up of all the tasting notes for the beers. It’s a nice small-size (3-3/4″ x 8-1/4″) paperback. In 162 full-color pages, there are features about the winning breweries and listings for all the winning beers, including at least a bottle shot for each. If you’re keen you can buy one online at Amazon UK or directly from the Tastings Beers website. Amazon US also has a listing for the book, but I believe it’s from a vendor selling copies from overseas.
I almost forgot about this. The week before last I got a call from the local CBS television station, CBS 5, asking me to comment on a story they were working on regarding a recent Consumer Reports beer tasting that was published in their August issue. In Bargain beer from Costco, they had consumers taste blind the Kirkland brand beers, Costco’s private label beer, with prominent commercial brands of a similar style — Samuel Adams Boston Lager, Samuel Adams Boston Ale, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, and Paulaner Hefe-Weizen.
The conclusion was that their “untrained panelists liked the Costco beers about as much as the same-style name-brand beers. (For each type, some people liked the Kirkland Signature better, some liked the brand name better, and some liked both equally.) Our consultants said that although the brand-name beers were more flavorful, clean-tasting, and complex, the Costco beers were quite quaffable and, to use the consultants’ technical term, ‘party-worthy.’”
The CBS producer asked me if I was “surprised” by those results. I explained that I wasn’t, and proceeded to tell her about the basics of how a private label beer is created, that licensed commercial breweries work with a retailer to create and brew the beer for them. I did a number of private label lines of beers when I worked at Beverages & more, beers like Coastal Fog, Brandenburg Gate and Truman’s True Brew. We also had a label in development to be called J.R. Brooks to do English styles like India Pale Ale, but I left before it saw the light of day. Anyway, I went on explaining that almost any private label beer done by a good brewery will likewise be pretty good, too. Nothing surprising about it all. It’s simply that most consumers probably don’t think about where the beer comes from, nor should they, I suppose. All that matters is that it tastes good. And then I added, almost as an afterthought, just to hammer home the point that private label beers that come from good homes are usually good beers, that it was Gordon Biersch that created and brewed the Costco beers.
At that point, the producer asked if they could come to my home in Novato and interview me on camera for the story they were working on. I agreed, but they called back and asked if there might be some beer-themed location that might also work. I suggested Moylan’s brewpub, since it’s only a mile or so from my house. We met there, they shot some B-roll of me walking with beer, sniffing a beer, drinking a beer, getting a beer poured. Then they picked a location and we sat down to talk on camera for about ten minutes. As I expected, they used under a minute in the finished story.
The video itself is online, but you’ll have to watch it there as they don’t seem to allow embedding.
You never know how these things will turn out, and the bit they zeroed on on, of course, was that the beer was made by Gordon Biersch. They treated it like a scoop of sorts, though it’s not exactly a secret. Whenever a contract private label beer is made, publicly available forms must be filed with the proper authorities, labels approved, etc. The labels, of course, by law must include the city and state where the beer was brewed, so it’s usually not that hard to figure out who made a private label beer. When you see Paso Robles, CA on a Trader Joe’s beer, you can pretty much guess that Firestone Walker brewed it. So when the Kirkland beers labels read “San Jose, California,” there aren’t too many production breweries in San Jose that could have made it. Really, anybody with just a little knowledge could have figured it out. When the labels were first approved, several people reported the news that Gordon Biersch would be making the Kirkland beers, myself included. I even spoke to Dan Gordon about it briefly at the time. But then they came out, and the news died away, as these things tend to do.
On the TV report, they said they tried to reach Gordon Biersch but got “no comment” so I hope I didn’t “out” Dan in some way that will make life tough for him, though in truth I doubt that’s possible. As I said, who does private label contract beers is more of an open secret, everybody in the beer community knows who does them and the records with the specifics are public. It’s just that the public at large doesn’t usually care enough or have the inside knowledge necessary to figure it out, even if they did want to know.
I think what’s more surprising is that neither Consumer Reports or CBS thought to question who made the beer. In a report about comparing the taste of two different beers, one by a commercial brewery and one a private label beer, shouldn’t that have been the first question Consumer Reports asked: who made the second beer? That would have gone a long way in explaining the result, don’t you think?
The New York Times had a great essay recently by Geoff Nicholson, entitled Drink What You Know. It’s part book review — for a re-issued “The Hour: A Cocktail Manifesto” — and part survey of literary drinking and writer’s advice on both writing and drinking. It includes this gem about the perils of my profession. “People telling you how to drink is every bit as tedious and annoying as people telling you not to drink at all.”
Nicholson continues:
When you think about it, rules for drinking are not so different from rules for writing. Many of these are so familiar they’ve become truisms: Write what you know. Write every day. Never use a strange, fancy word when a simple one will do. Always finish the day’s writing when you could still do more. With a little adaptation these rules apply just as well for drinking. Drink what you know, drink regularly rather than in binges, avoid needlessly exotic booze, and leave the table while you can still stand.
That seems true enough, but my favorite piece of advice comes near the end:
The best you can hope for is to arrive, by whatever means, at the same conclusions as those who are older and wiser. Another piece of advice from Richard Ford runs, “Don’t drink and write at the same time,” a rule I follow scrupulously. But a more nuanced version of the same rule comes from Keith Waterhouse, the author of “Billy Liar.” He said you should never drink while you’re writing, but it’s O.K. to write while you’re drinking, a nice distinction.
Let that sink in. You should never drink while you’re writing, but it is acceptable to write while you’re drinking. Whew, dodged a bullet there.
The latest list of the Top Beers on Planet Earth that Beer Advocate released yesterday was an experimental list, aimed at sparking a discussion so they could consider the best way to approach such lists in the future. After a day of constructive feedback, and some not so constructive I’m told, they’ve again redone the list introducing several new changes to the formula, based on feedback they received during the experiment. The biggest difference between the two lists is to be included on yesterday’s list required a minimum of 1,000 reviews. The current list requires only 105 reviews to be eligible. So since so many people seemed to enjoy yesterday’s analysis of the list, I’ve looked at the new list in the same way and again pulled out some interesting statistics about the Top 100 Beers.
In the Top 100, there are beers from 60 breweries, 16 more than yesterday’s list (the Experimental or E-List). Those breweries are from six countries, one less than the E-List. Two countries dropped off (the Czech Republic and Ireland) and one new one was added (Denmark).
The U.S. again has by far the most, with 72 (one more than yesterday’s). The American beers on the list are located in 19 states, 6 more than the E-List. California still has the most, by far, with two more than yesterday’s list, bringing their total to 25, meaning one in four beers on the list is from California. Seven new states had beers that made the list (Connecticut, Florida, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, Texas and Wisconsin) and one dropped off (Maryland). Here’s how the new list shakes out:
Countries in Top 100
- U.S. = 72
- Belgium = 17
- Canada = 4
- Germany = 3
- UK = 3
- Denmark = 1
U.S. States in Top 100
- California = 25
- Michigan = 9
- Colorado = 5
- Indiana = 5
- Minnesota = 4
- Illinois = 3
- New York = 3
- Ohio = 3
- Oregon = 3
- Pennsylvania = 2
- Wisconsin = 2
- Connecticut = 1
- Delaware = 1
- Florida = 1
- Maine = 1
- Massachusetts = 1
- Missouri = 1
- New Hampshire = 1
- Texas = 1
The diversity of styles represented by the list dropped to 24, losing a dozen but picking up five new ones, and again I simplified and combined a few from Beer Advocate’s list. Around 11 styles have only one beer on the list. The most popular, Imperial Stout, more than doubled over yesterday’s list, while the second most popular, Double IPAs, remained the same. The top 13 (the styles with more than 1) break down as follows.
Most Popular Beer Styles in Top 100
- Imperial Stout = 30
- Imperial IPA = 10
- India Pale Ale = 10
- American Strong Ale = 6
- American Wild Ale = 2
- Belgian Strong Dark Ale = 4
- Quadrupel = 4
- Stout = 4
- Tripel = 4
- Doppelbock = 3
- Fruit Beer = 2
- Saison/Farmhouse = 3
- Barley Wine = 2
- Hefeweizen = 2
Extreme beers (9% and above) took the lead, with 53, over half, whereas yesterday they numbered only 32. Beers below 5% also dropped in half, from 10 to 5. Beers of middle-strength (over 5% but below 9%) likewise fell from 58 to 42. In the new list extreme beers make up 53%, middle-strength 42% and session beers 5%. In the Top 25, things stayed more constant, with 16 (1 more than the E-List) being 9% or above. The Top 25 also represent less styles, 9 as opposed to 12 yesterday, from 16 different breweries in 4 countries, shaking out like so:
Countries in Top 25
- U.S. = 18
- Belgium = 4
- Canada = 2
- Germany = 1
U.S. States in Top 25
- California = 6
- Michigan = 4
- Illinois = 2
- Indiana = 2
- Minnesota = 1
- New Hampshire = 1
- Oregon = 1
- Pennsylvania = 1
Most Popular Beer Styles in the Top 25
- Imperial Stout = 11
- Imperial IPA = 4
- Quadrupel = 3
- American IPA = 2
The top 50 is no longer as middle of the road as it was. Yesterday, extreme and middle-strength beers were nearly equal. Today’s list has extreme beers at about 56%. Again, Oskar Blues was the highest ranked canned beer, but came in at #45 instead of #30.
The diversity of breweries also changed dramatically, with several having a great number on yesterday’s list being reduced to very few or even none, notably Anchor, Dogfish Head and Sierra Nevada. Thirteen breweries, many of them world class, fell of the new list but 30 news ones made the cut, giving the whole list greater diversity. The breweries having the most beers on the Top 100 list is below.
Breweries in the Top 100
- Russian River = 7
- Stone Brewing = 7
- Founder’s Brewing = 5
- Three Floyds =5
- AleSmith = 4
- Bell’s Brewery = 3
- Great Divide Brewing = 3
- Surly Brewing = 2
- Bear Republic Brewing = 2
- Goose Island = 2
- De Struise = 2
- New Glarus = 2
- Rochefort = 2
- Rogue Ales = 2
- Samuel Smith = 2
- Unibroue = 2
- Westvleteren = 2
And here’s the new list:
Beer Advocate’s Top 100 Beers On Planet Earth (as of 8.10.2010)
- Trappist Westvleteren 12, Brouwerij Westvleteren (Quadrupel; 10.2%)
- Pliny The Elder, Russian River Brewing (American Double/Imperial IPA; 8%)
- Pliny The Younger, Russian River Brewing (American Double/Imperial IPA; 11%)
- The Abyss, Deschutes Brewing (American Double/Imperial Stout; 11%)
- Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout, Founders Brewing (American Double/Imperial Stout; 11.2%)
- Trappistes Rochefort 10, Brasserie de Rochefort (Quadrupel; 11.3%)
- Trappist Westvleteren 8, Brouwerij Westvleteren (Dubbel; 8%)
- Founders Breakfast Stout, Founders Brewing (American Double/Imperial Stout; 8.3%)
- HopSlam Ale, Bell’s Brewery (American Double/Imperial IPA; 10%)
- Stone Imperial Russian Stout, Stone Brewing (Russian Imperial Stout; 10.5%)
- St. Bernardus Abt 12, Brouwerij St. Bernardus (Quadrupel; 10.5%)
- Dark Lord Imperial Stout, Three Floyds Brewing (Russian Imperial Stout; 15%)
- Supplication, Russian River Brewing (American Wild Ale; 7%)
- Speedway Stout, AleSmith Brewing (American Double/Imperial Stout; 12%)
- Péché Mortel (Imperial Stout Au Cafe), Brasserie Dieu Du Ciel (American Double/Imperial Stout; 9.5%)
- Kate The Great, Portsmouth Brewery (Russian Imperial Stout; 9.5%)
- Dreadnaught IPA, Three Floyds Brewing (American Double/Imperial IPA; 9.5%)
- Sculpin IPA, Ballast Point Brewing (American IPA; 7%)
- Canadian Breakfast Stout, Founders Brewing (American Double/Imperial Stout; 9.4%)
- Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier, Brauerei Weihenstephan (Hefeweizen; 5.4%)
- Masala Mama IPA, Minneapolis Town Hall Brewery (American IPA; 5.9%)
- Bourbon County Stout, Goose Island (American Double/Imperial Stout: 13%)
- Nugget Nectar, Tröegs Brewing (American Amber/Red Ale; 7.5%)
- Bourbon County Coffee Stout, Goose Island (American Double/Imperial Stout; 13%)
- Celebrator Doppelbock, Brauerei Aying (Doppelbock; 6.7%)
- Darkness, Surly Brewing (Russian Imperial Stout; 10.3%)
- Temptation, Russian River Brewing (American Wild Ale; 7.25%)
- Furious, Surly Brewing (American IPA; 6.2%)
- Duvel, Brouwerij Duvel Moortgat (Belgian Strong Pale Ale; 8.5%)
- La Fin Du Monde, Unibroue (Tripel; 9%)
- Schneider Aventinus, Private Weissbierbrauerei G. Schneider & Sohn (Weizenbock; 8.2%)
- AleSmith IPA, AleSmith Brewing (American IPA; 7.25%)
- Consecration, Russian River Brewing (American Wild Ale; 10%)
- Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout, North Coast Brewing (Russian Imperial Stout; 9%)
- Double Bastard Ale, Stone Brewing (American Strong Ale; 10.5%)
- Trappistes Rochefort 8, Brasserie de Rochefort (Belgian Strong Dark Ale; 9.2%)
- Hop Rod Rye, Bear Republic Brewing (American IPA; 8%)
- Ruination IPA, Stone Brewing (American Double/Imperial IPA; 7.7%)
- Edmund Fitzgerald Porter, Great Lakes Brewing (American Porter; 5.8%)
- Two Hearted Ale, Bell’s Brewery (American IPA; 7.1%)
- Wisconsin Belgian Red, New Glarus Brewing (Fruit Beer; 4%)
- Chimay Grande Réserve (Blue), Bières de Chimay, a.k.a. Abbaye Notre Dame de Scourmont (Belgian Strong Dark Ale; 9%)
- YuleSmith (Summer), AleSmith Brewing (American Double/Imperial IPA; 8.8%)
- Oak Aged Yeti Imperial Stout, Great Divide Brewing (Russian Imperial Stout; 9.5%)
- Ten FIDY, Oskar Blues Grill & Brewery (Russian Imperial Stout; 9.5%)
- Hunahpu’s Imperial Stout, Cigar City Brewing (American Double/Imperial Stout; 11.5%)
- Chocolate Stout, Rogue Ales (American Stout; 6%)
- 90 Minute IPA, Dogfish Head Craft Brewery (American Double/Imperial IPA; 9%)
- Blind Pig IPA, Russian River Brewing (American IPA; 6.1%)
- Pannepot: Old Fisherman’s Ale, De Struise Brouwers (Quadrupel; 10%)
- Raspberry Tart, New Glarus Brewing (Fruit Beer; 4%)
- Fantôme Saison, Brasserie Fantôme (Saison/Farmhouse Ale; 8%)
- Yeti Imperial Stout, Great Divide Brewing (Russian Imperial Stout; 9.5%)
- Choklat, Southern Tier Brewing (American Double/Imperial Stout; 11%)
- Alpha King Pale Ale, Three Floyds Brewing (American Pale Ale; 6%)
- Stone IPA, Stone Brewing (American IPA; 6.9%)
- Westmalle Trappist Tripel, Brouwerij Westmalle (Tripel; 9.5%)
- J.W. Lees Vintage Harvest Ale, J.W. Lees & Co. (English Barleywine; 11.5%)
- Kuhnhenn Raspberry Eisbock, Kuhnhenn Brewing (Eisbock; 13.5%)
- Old Ruffian Barley Wine, Great Divide Brewing (American Barleywine; 10.2%)
- Black Tuesday, The Bruery (American Double/Imperial Stout; 19.5%)
- Shakespeare Oatmeal Stout, Rogue Ales (Oatmeal Stout; 6.1%)
- Arrogant Bastard Ale, Stone Brewing (American Strong Ale; 7.2%)
- Storm King Stout, Victory Brewing (Russian Imperial Stout; 9.1%)
- Live Oak HefeWeizen, Live Oak Brewing (Hefeweizen; 4.1%)
- Cuvée Van De Keizer Blauw (Blue), Brouwerij Het Anker (Belgian Strong Dark Ale; 11%)
- Vanilla Bean Aged Dark Lord, Three Floyds Brewing (Russian Imperial Stout; 13%)
- Founders Imperial Stout, Founders Brewing (Russian Imperial Stout; 10.5%)
- Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout, Brooklyn Brewery (Russian Imperial Stout; 10.1%)
- St. Bernardus Tripel, Brouwerij St. Bernardus (Tripel; 8%)
- Samuel Smith’s Imperial Stout, Samuel Smith Old Brewery at Tadcaster (Russian Imperial Stout; 7%)
- Bell’s Expedition Stout, Bell’s Brewery (Russian Imperial Stout; 10.5%)
- Andechser Doppelbock Dunkel, Klosterbrauerei Andechs (Doppelbock; 7.1%)
- Girardin Gueuze 1882 Black Label (unfiltered), Brouwerij Girardin (Gueuze; 5%)
- Pure Hoppiness, Alpine Beer Co. (American Double/Imperial IPA; 8%)
- Oaked Arrogant Bastard Ale, Stone Brewing (American Strong Ale; 7.2%)
- Saint Lamvinus, Brasserie Cantillon (Lambic, Fruit; 6%)
- Thomas Hooker Liberator Doppelbock, Thomas Hooker Ales & Lagers (Doppelbock; 8%)
- Houblon Chouffe Dobbelen IPA Tripel, Brasserie d’Achouffe (Belgian IPA; 9%)
- B.O.R.I.S. The Crusher Oatmeal-Imperial Stout, Hoppin’ Frog Brewery (Russian Imperial Stout; 9.4%)
- Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale, Stone Brewing (American Strong Ale; 8.7%)
- Hennepin (Farmhouse Saison), Brewery Ommegang (Saison/Farmhouse Ale; 7.7%)
- Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout, Samuel Smith Old Brewery at Tadcaster (Oatmeal Stout; 5%)
- Founders Red’s Rye PA, Founders Brewing (Rye Beer; 6.8%)
- Samuel Adams Utopias, Boston Beer Co. (American Strong Ale; 27%)
- Beatification, Russian River Brewing (American Wild Ale; 5.5%)
- AleSmith Speedway Stout, Barrel Aged, AleSmith Brewing (American Double/Imperial Stout; 12%)
- Abrasive Ale, Surly Brewing (American Double/Imperial IPA; 9%)
- Trois Pistoles, Unibroue (Belgian Strong Dark Ale; 9%)
- Tripel Karmeliet, Brouwerij Bosteels (Tripel; 8.4%)
- Racer 5 India Pale Ale, Bear Republic Brewing (American IPA; 7%)
- Cadillac Mountain Stout, Bar Harbor Brewing (American Stout; 6.7%)
- Siberian Night Imperial Stout, Thirsty Dog Brewing (Russian Imperial Stout; 9%)
- Maharaja, Avery Brewing (American Double/Imperial IPA; 10.3%)
- Oak Aged Dark Lord Imperial Stout, Three Floyds Brewing (Russian Imperial Stout; 13%)
- Ølfabrikken Porter, Ølfabrikken (Baltic Porter; 7.5%)
- The Angel’s Share, Bourbon Barrel-Aged, The Lost Abbey (American Strong Ale; 12%)
- Saison, Brett, Boulevard Brewing (Saison/Farmhouse Ale; 8.5%)
- Black Albert, De Struise Brouwers (Russian Imperial Stout; 13%)
- Night Stalker, Goose Island (American Double/Imperial Stout; 11.7%)
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