Here are the results from the 2010 Hard Liver Barleywine Fest in held at Brouwer’s Cafe in Seattle, Washington:
Congratulations to all the winners.
Today at the Wynkoop Brewpub in Denver, Colorado the 2010 Beerdrinker of the Year was proclaimed. This year’s winner — Bill Howell — is a Sterling, Alaska college administrator, retired Navy officer, homebrewer, and beer educator. One of three national finalists at Wynkoop competing for the 2010 title, Howell withstood 2 hours of difficult beer-related questions from a panel of national beer experts to win the 14th annual title. He wins free beer for life at Wynkoop, a $250 bar tab at his favorite brewpub, St. Elias Brewing in Soldotna, AK, unmatched beer-lover glory and other prizes for winning the title.
From Bill’s short beer resume:
William Howell, a Sterling, Alaska college administrator, retired Navy officer, homebrewer, and beer educator. In 2007 he created a new course for Kenai Peninsula College entitled The Art and History of Brewing, and has traveled extensively across Alaska and the West in pursuit of great beer. He also serves as an ally for various beer retailers and journalists, and blogs about his state’s rich beer culture.
His beer philosophy: “I have been a lover of craft beers since 1984 and a homebrewer since 1989. Since my retirement from active duty I’ve been really been able to “get serious” about beer. I decided it was time to start giving something back to the world of craft beer that had given me so much.”
The newly crowned king with the judges. Congratulations, Bill.
The other two finalists were:
Phil Farrell, a Cumming, Georgia commercial pilot, homebrewer, beer judge and 2007 Beerdrinker finalist. He has tasted beer in every country in Europe, 1000 of the world’s pubs and 400 brewpubs. His basement beer pub features six taps, two refrigerators, and a 15-gallon brewing system.
Logan Perkins, a Denver, Colorado beer enthusiast who has tried nearly 5000 beers in 45 states, 21 European countries and 5 Asian nations. He has conducted extensive travels across then US since 2008, visiting America’s breweries and beer towns. Perkins was a 2007 Beerdrinker of the Year finalist and 2009 semifinalist.
The semi-finalist nominations for the prestigious James Beard Foundation awards were recently released. If you’re not familiar with the awards, here’s a description from their website.
Deemed “the Oscars of the food world,” by Time magazine, The James Beard Foundation Awards are the country’s most coveted honor for chefs; food and beverage professionals; broadcast media, journalists, and authors working on food; and restaurant architects and designers.
In the misnamed category “Outstanding Wine and Spirits Professional,” four luminaries from the world of beer made the cut. Those semi-finalists are Larry Bell (Bell’s Brewery), Sam Calagione (Dogfish Head Craft Brewery), Jim Koch (Boston Beer Co.) and Garrett Oliver (Brooklyn Brewery), any one of which deserves to win, or at least move on to the final round. Of the 20 semifinalists in each category, five final nominees will be announced March 22, and the awards themselves will be presented May 3.
At the risk of losing my own media nomination (that’s a joke BTW) isn’t it time to lose the wine and spirits bias? With 20% of the semi-finalists from the world of craft beer, wouldn’t something like “Outstanding Beverage Professional” be more appropriate and less insulting?
Here are the results from the 2010 Toronado Barley Wine Festival in San Francisco:
The other beers that reached the final round were AleSmith Old Numbskull, Alpine Brewing Great, Anchor Old Foghorn, and Big Sky Old Blue Hair.
Congratulations to all the winners.
Pizza Port‘s Welcome Back Wipeout IPA was chosen best in show at the 10th annual Double IPA Festival today at the Bistro in Hayward, California. That’s the second year in a row that a Pizza Port beer has won. The full winner’s list is below.
Below is a video of Vic and Cynthia announcing the winners.
Before Christmas, I attended the 21st annual holiday tasting at Pacific Coast Brewing in Oakland. It was my first time at the long-running event and I had a terrific time. Owner Steve Wolfe and brewmaster Don Gortemiller were gracious hosts and I spent the afternoon with several friends and colleagues. I also didn’t realize just how much food would be served — which I should add was a welcome development — with the fifteen beers. Having done this for decades, they have the process down. Every fifteen minutes a new beer was poured and in between a new dish was made available for noshing.
Pacific Coast Brewing’s Steve Wolfe with brewmaster Don Gortemiller.
Don and Steve chose all the beers with an eye toward serving the most special beers they could get their hands on, and ones which were appropriate for the holiday season. Nine of the fifteen were holiday seasonals, and three were anniversary ales.
Mario Rubio, from Brewed For Thought, me, Steve Wolfe, Don Gortemiller and Mike Pitsker, from the Celebrator Beer News.
Every attendee was provided with an elaborate scoring sheet along with some guidelines on how to score each beer. Most people in the brewpub seemed to take scoring the beers very seriously. At the end of the tasting, the completed sheets are collected and tabulated. Brewmaster Don Gortemiller released the results of the 2009 tasting a few days before Christmas. This year’s winner was the Double Jack from Firestone Walker Brewing in Paso Robles, California. Deschutes Black Butte XXI came in second and third place went to the collaboration between Dogfish Head Brewery and Sierra Nevada Brewing, Life & Limb. To see the full tally, check out the results on Pacific Coast’s website.
This year’s winner, Firestone Walker Double Jack.
Below is a slideshow of the Pacific Coast Holiday Tasting. This Flickr gallery is best viewed in full screen. To view it that way, after clicking on the arrow in the center to start the slideshow, click on the button on the bottom right with the four arrows pointing outward on it, to see the photos in glorious full screen. Once in full screen slideshow mode, click on “Show Info” to identify each photo.
My friend and colleague Rick Lyke has the good fortune to have a son-in-law who’s a graphic designer and really, really good at creating graphs or infographics, which is essentially a chart that tell a story. For the second year in a row, Rick has persuaded his son-in-law, Mike Wirth, to create an awesome infographic of various GABF medal statistics for his Lyke2Drink blog. Since he introduced this back in August, about a month before this year’s GABF, hopefully he won’t mind my sharing it. I’ve parsed some of the most interesting mini-charts within the infographic and displayed them below.
These charts show the number of breweries by state and the total number by type or size of brewery.
This is a chart of states with the most per capita breweries vs. the states that have won the most cumulative medals since they began awarding medals through 2008.
This is a chart of the breweries that have won the most cumulative medals since they began awarding medals through 2008.
This is a chart of the individual beers that have won the most cumulative medals since they began awarding medals through 2008.
Lastly, here is a detail of the west coast and the medals won by breweries in California, Oregon and Washington.
This is the entire infographic, show smaller of course, but click here to see it full size or see it at Mike Wirth’s website or with Rick Lyke’s original analysis.
Oregon Bounty, who is the sponsor of the Cuisinternship contest to find interns for seven uniquely Oregonian artisan and craft pursuits, has begun announcing the winners, one each day.
The Brewmaster Cuisinternship winner was announced this morning. From the many entries, the finalists were whittled down to seven. From those seven, I chose three finalists. The winner was then chosen by Jamie Emmerson, brewmaster at Full Sail Brewing in Mt. Hood, where he’ll spend his beer-filled week.
The beer intern winner was Kevin Kozlen of Bloomington, Illinois. Here’s his video entry. Here’s what Kevin should experience:
Along the shores of the mighty Columbia River Gorge, Kevin will get a week-long lesson from some of the country’s craft brewing pioneers. From the hop farm to the mash tun to the microscope, he’ll feel, smell and taste beer from beginning to end. If he can tear yourself away from the tasting table, he’ll be able to explore the charming town of Hood River, unofficial U.S. capitol of windsurfing, beer drinking and hanging out.
Congratulation, Kevin. Have a great time.
Jeff Bagby, the head brewer at Pizza Port in Carlsbad, won big this year at the Great American Beer Festival. He picked up a whopping seven medals; four gold, one silver and two bronze. In addition, Pizza Port Carlsbad was awarded the Large Brewpub and Large Brewpub Brewer of the Year.
Below is a photo of Jeff, with Yiga Miyashira, up on stage picking up just one of his eight awards last Saturday. Notice the eyesore inducing polyester plaid pants? If you’re a regular to the GABF Award Ceremony, you may already remember that Jeff always seems to have on a pair of plaid pants. At first, I thought it was the same pair every year. But looking back over the last few reveals that it’s actually been a different pair of polyester plaid pants each year.
Given that Jeff and Pizza Port Carlsbad have won 19 medals in the last four years, I’d say his plaid pants are pretty darn lucky. Of course, being a great brewer helps, and I don’t want to take anything away from his mad skills. But I’d put even money on the pants making even the most mediocre brewer better. Below is a retrospective of Jeff’s “Lucky Pants” for the past four years.
2009 Lucky Pants
2008 Lucky Pants
2007 Lucky Pants
2006 Lucky Pants
If you, too, want or need a little luck — and let’s face it, who doesn’t? — I took a close up of the pattern on Jeff’s lucky pants and created some downloadable wallpaper in three different sizes. So now in addition to the Bulletin logo wallpaper page, you can also get Mr. Bagby’s wallpaper, too.
There’s been a running gag at Shaun O’Sullivan’s expense that’s been going now for something like ten years. While Shaun has won medals at GABF with previous breweries he’s worked at and with the brewpub he co-owns, 21st Amendment, he’s never won a medal with 21A when he was attending GABF. Up until Saturday, every medal 21st Amendment has won happened when Shaun was not there to collect the award and bask in the glory of winning.
But this year, with Shaun in the audience, the jinx was finally broken when 21st Amendment won a bronze medal for their Diesel Imperial Smoked Porter in the Smoked Beer category.
Afterward, I caught up with Shaun and asked him about finally breaking the curse.
Later, with co-owner Nico Freccia, and 21A bartender Claudia Davis, I coaxed out a rendition of the Watermelon Wheat song, GABF edition.
If you noticed the girl with rabbit ears walk through the shot during the Watermelon Wheat song, I happened upon “bunny girl” later in the afternoon session and snapped a photo so we could all get a better look.
