Right now I’m out in Denver, Colorado judging at the 30th Great American Beer Festival. Because it’s the 30th year, after orientation last night, they took an impromptu group photo of all 167 judges, or at least as many as would fit in the photo. See if you can find me (hint: I’m a little to the left and two-thirds of the way back). Recognize anyone else? There’s plenty of other faces in the crowd that you probably know.
Click on the photo for a larger view.
Joey McDaniel created a cool infographic comparing the first Great American Beer Festival in 1982 to this year’s festival. Joey was introduced to craft beer by his wife, Jen, and together they run the beer blog Wet Your Whistles, covering beer in the Bay Area, with an emphasis on the “watering holes along the San Francisco Bay Area Caltrain railway line.” It’s interesting to see how far we’ve come in the 30 years since the first GABF was held. Nice job, Joey.
As today is International Talk Like A Pirate Day, I thought I’d share this version of the Pirate Alphabet, which seems to be more about beer than piracy.
THE PIRATE ALPHABET
A — The favorite word of Canadian pirates, ey?
B — B stands for Beer!
C — Da ting we sails da boat on
D — Das beer! German pirates
E — ‘e needs a beer
F — ‘f only I had a beer
G — Gee, I wish I had a beer
H — H’aightch and everone one of us should have a beer
I — I wish I had a beer
J — The guy who sells us beer
K — Jay’s wife, she’s a looker!
L — Da place where bad pirates goes when dey dies!
M — ’em folks needs beers
N — ‘nother beer
O — Oh I wish I had a beer
P — (*long pause*) Self-explanatree!
Q — A French word meaning ‘line for beer’
R — A pirate’s favorite word, Arrrh!
S — What you fall on when you drink too much beer
T — Why we beat the British
U — You should have a beer
V — Vikings! Swedish pirates
W — You and you should have a beer
X — Jay’s former wife, she no longer sells us beer
Y — Why not have a beer
Z — Ze beer! French pirates
Family commitments kept me from attending this year’s Bistro IPA Festival, but owner Vic Kralj was kind enough to send me the list of the winners. Craig Cauwels’ IPA, from Schooner’s in Antioch, California, was chosen best in show at the 14th annual IPA Festival yesterday at the Bistro in Hayward, California. The full list of winners is below.
After we marched from McMenamin’s Crystal Ballroom to the Tom McCall Waterfront Park and the Oregon Brewers Festival, the ceremonial keg was brought into the park by the Hammerheads from this year’s parade host brewery, McMenamin’s.
Hammerheads and the ceremonial cask.
The Hammerheads and the Ruby Witches McMenamins’ folks positioned themselves in front of the stage.
Then Art Larrance got things started.
This year’s parade host represented by Brian McMenamin, took the ceremonial hammer.
And passed it off to next year’s host, the Cascade Barrel House.
Then Grand Marshall Fred Eckhardt had a few words for the crowd, before tapping the first keg.
Fred, tapping the keg.
Fred drinking the first toast to OBF 2011.
Fred and me catching up with a pint after the ceremonies.
Although I missed last year’s Oregon Brewers Festival for the first time in many years, it felt like it had been at least five years since I’d been back. That’s how much I missed Portland, and I was thrilled to be there again. After the Brewer’s Dinner Wednesday night, I attended the brunch, this year held at McMenamin’s Crystal Ballroom, and helped setup for the event beforehand, as well. After everyone feasted and prepared their stomachs for the day’s drinking, what looked to be close to 1200 people lined up for the parade. That’s just a guess, but it was easily the biggest crowd I’d seen for the parade, and this was my third time, of the five so far. Many of the usual suspects were there, the band, the Rogue Friars, people in kilts, people wearing literal hopheads, etc. This year’s Grand Marshall was Portland legend Fred Eckhardt who led the parade via pedicab down to the Tom McCall Waterfront Park, the annual home of the beer festival. Here are some photos from the parade. Enjoy.
Pedicab leading the OBF Parade with Grand Marshall Fred Eckhardt and OBF founder Art Larrance.
Here we come.
… walking down the street,
We get the funniest looks from …
Everyone we meet.
After arriving at the festival grounds, it was time to tap the keg and officially start the festival. Look for the ceremonies coming soon in part 2.
Today is the 4th annual holiday celebrating brewers around the world, International Brewers Day, which I created in 2008. While I haven’t been able to put as much effort into it as I might have liked, someday I will. In the meantime, some parts of the international brewing community are carrying on with celebrations, most notably in Australia. For now, a quiet celebration involving beer and any brewer you happen to encounter today is in order.
You could see the original idea, the plan and why I chose July 18 at the old International Brewers Day website, but unfortunately it’s currently down. I’ll have to get that moved and back up again one of these days.
Here was my original driving thought:
Brewers have given so many of us the pleasure of their artistry and enriched our lives with their beer since civilization began. So I think it’s time we recognized their efforts by celebrating their lives, their commitment and their craft. We’re all beer people, but without the brewers what would we be drinking?
Did I mention that hugging brewers is a big part of the holiday?
As the old Czech saying goes:
“Blessed is the mother who gives birth to a brewer.“
Back in November, the call went out through the BA’s Export Development Program for brewers around the world to enter the Australian International Beer Awards for 2011. When my local brewpub Moylan’s Brewery & Restaurant decided to enter some of their beer, they couldn’t have known how well it would turn out for them.
Moylan’s ended up winning two gold medals, for Moylan’s Moylander Double IPA and Hopsickle Imperial Triple IPA, a silver medal for Chelsea Moylan’s Porter and two bronze medals for both Dragoon’s Dry Irish Stout and Ryan Sullivan’s Imperial Stout. Those wins resulted in them being awarded more points than any other brewery and garnered them two additional bigger prizes: the “Cleanevent Trophy for Champion Small Brewery” and the “Royal Agricultural Society of Victoria Trophy for Champion Exhibitor” for the Highest Scoring Exhibitor, which is the biggest prize awarded throughout the entire competition. Congratulations to Denise and everybody at Moylan’s.
Yesterday, Dr. Peter Aldred from the AIBA — who’s at UC Davis for a few months — stopped by Moylan’s in Novato to present the Australian International Beer Awards Trophy to Brewmaster Denise Jones and Owner Brendan Moylan.
The whole gang of brewers from Moylan’s poses with their trophies.
If you want to see the rest of the winners, they’re listed at Australian Brews News.
Regular readers have probably noticed that my usual output has been diminished here of late, that’s because I’ve been in Buenos Aires, Argentina since Monday. I was fortunate enough to be invited to judge at the very first South Beer Cup, South America’s version of the Great American Beer Festival and the Craft Brewers Conference combined. It was put on by the Centro de Cata de Cerveza with support from the very active local homebrew club, Somos Cerveceros.
They had 280 beers from 72 breweries entered in 20 categories from four countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay. Along with the local judges, made up of brewers and BJCP certified judges, four experienced judges from North America were on hand to help out. In addition to myself, there was Stephen Beaumont, Doug Odell and Pete Slosberg. The four of us also each gave a short talk during the conference portion of the event.
But more about that later, last evening at a gala awards ceremony held at the rooftop of the American Club. It was a great event, and perhaps the best part was seeing the enthusiasm and passion on display as the excited winners went up to accept their awards, all to some very dramatic music. So without further ado, here s the list of the winners for the first South Beer Cup:
Congratulations to all the winners.
And here’s all the participating breweries:
Well that was great fun, I was certainly glad to see so many people step up and participate, despite my best efforts to make things as difficult as possible. And everybody seemed to have a very good time, too. Cheese and beers just brings out the best in all of us, I guess. Anyway, I’m doing the round-up a little bit differently this Session, because this is not just the end of the Session, but also the beginning of the second phase, or Session #51.5. Below you’ll find a list of all of the beers paired with each of the three cheeses, or their substitute parenthetically, along with a link to each Session post submission. In most cases, I listed just the best pairing from each blogger for each cheese, unless otherwise noted. Also, I’ll continue to update this list as late submissions continue to roll in, as they inevitably do. Following that, you’ll find instructions on how to participate in round two, Session #51.5 on Friday, May 20.
Here are the best pairings everybody chose for the Widmer 1-Year Aged Cheddar, or a suitable substitute. I’ve noted what substitute cheese was used, where applicable.
Here are the best pairings everybody chose for the Humboldt Fog, or a suitable substitute. I’ve noted what substitute cheese was used, where applicable.
Here are the best pairings everybody chose for the Maytag Blue, or a suitable substitute. I’ve noted what substitute cheese was used, where applicable.
I was also glad to see so many people not stress too much about the specific cheeses I recommended. I knew that not everybody would be able to find them going in, but it seemed like the more who could find the same cheeses, the better the experiment would work, because it could more easily be duplicated regardless of location. But I also realized that with beer bloggers so spread out around the world, that in the end it was an impossible task and felt it was better to participate with a substitute cheese then not at all, and as long as the cheeses were somewhat similar, I figured it would still be valid. A number of people also added additional cheeses or could not find substitutions that were similar, so the list below is all of the other and extra cheeses that peoples paired together.
Okay, I know not everyone will want to go for this, but if you’re with me so far and you’ve already participated in Session #51, here’s the idea for part two. Use the list of beers chosen by everybody for each of the three cheeses that are listed above to try a few more beers with the same cheese. Over the next two weeks, simply pick up some of the other beers that were suggested, and try them with the same three cheeses and do a follow up blog post on Friday, May 20 — which I’m calling Session #51.5 — to explore more fully pairing cheese and beer.
You can write about how your choices compared, or what you learned from the other suggestions, or which out of all the ones you tried worked best. What recommended pairing most surprised you? Which didn’t seem to work at all, for you? It’s my way of taking the Session concept and making it more interactive and collaborative, essentially an “online cheese-off.” First, we made our best recommendations for pairing a beer with these three cheeses, and now we have an opportunity to try as many of the suggestions as we can, and discover which worked best. I’ll then do a second round-up and report the findings of the group as a whole to the beers and the three cheeses together.
Spread the cheese .. er, the word. If you’ve already done Part One, don’t stop now, keep going. Read what your fellow bloggers liked, and pick a few to try yourself. To participate, just post a comment here with a link to your blog post for Session #51.5.