Colorado Brewers Take Home 27 World Beer Cup Medals

Last week brewers from around the world gathered together for a week of seminars and talks in San Diego. The event culminates in the biennial award ceremony for the World Beer Cup, the most prestigious awards in the beer industry. This year, the Brewer's Association reported there were 799 breweries participating, from 57 different countries. There were 95 beer styles to be judged and 3,921 beers entered into those categories. Breweries in the US, make up the largest percentage of entered beers with about 67% of all the entries. That doesn't mean that you're likely to win an award though. US breweries received a total of 208 awards, so the rate of winning an award as a US brewer would be about 7.8%. Your chance goes down of course if your beer is no good. :)

Colorado brewers won a total of 27 awards, so approximately 13% of all the awards won by US brewers. Not bad! I want to give a shout out to some of the breweries and I've also got a complete list of Colorado brewery awards below.

Major big props to Rocky Mountain Brewery in our own town of Colorado Springs. RMB has won awards twice in a row now. Two years ago they won a gold medal in the Fruit Beer category for Da Yoopers, the cherry pie beer. This year they won a silver for that beer, and they ALSO won a gold for the Eat A Peach. A gold and a silver in the Fruit Beer category is impressive. There were 41 entries in this category. Congrats guys!

I'm also really happy to announce that in the first ever World Beer Cup with the American Style Brett Ale category we had two winners. Crooked Stave picked up the Bronze for the Wild Wild Brett Rouge and AC Golden picked up Silver for their Peche. I knew both these brewers would win, I think this is a big boost for these highly experimental brewers.

Bull and Bush from Denver won a number of awards. They received a gold medal in the "Field Beer or Pumpkin Beer" for their Turnip the Beets, which also continues to win all sorts of awards. They also won a bronze in the Aged Beer category for their 1999 vintage of Release the Hounds Barley Wine. They picked up a bronze in the ESB section for The Tower E.S.B. And they got a gold medal in the English-Style IPA category for their Man Beer. Seriously nice work Bull and Bush!

Rockyard up in Castle Rock picked up a silver medal for the Redhawk Ale in the Scottish Style Ale category. Congrats Kjell and Jim! In the Scotch Ale category Dry Dock Brewing, from Aurora, picked up a gold medal for their Wee Heavy. The category had 51 entries.

I think Oskar Blues gets some big congrats for winning gold in the Imperial Red Ale for the fantastic tasting G'Knight.

Congrats to Odell Brewing for winning a Bronze for their Double Pilsner in the "Other Strong Beer" category. The category is meant to serve the purpose of filling the gap for brewers experimenting with styles, upping the abv, and because of it the beer doesn't fit the traditional category any longer. There were 35 entries in this one.

Another great award was Steamworks, in Durango, who won gold medal for their Berliner Weisse in the German Style Sour category. Berlinerweisse is a wonderful category, and a beer style that I think people should seek out. Speaking of Durango, Ska Brewing won a gold in the Sweet Stout category for the Steel Toe Stout. That's awesome and I'm going to have to make my way to Durango to try both of those from the source. I'd like to see how the Steamworks compares to the GABF gold medal winning Berliner Weisse from Crabtree in Greeley. I'm curious if Crabtree entered that beer, they did win a silver medal for the Menage a Trois Braggot in the Specialty Honey Beer category.

Here's a list of the rest of the awards from Colorado brewers:
Fruit Wheat Beer - Silver - Blue Moon Vintage Blonde from Blue Moon Brewing
Baltic-Style Porter - Gold - Baltic Gnome Porter from Rock Bottom Denver
German-Style Märzen - Gold - Florhosen from The SandLot
German-Style Schwarzbier - Gold - Art of Science Schwarzbier from Dillon DAM Brewery
American-Style Cream Ale/Lager - Bronze - Milwaukee's Best, Miller
American-Style Lager - Gold - Coors Light from Coors
American-Style Premium Lager - Gold - Steel Reserve from Miller
American-Style Premium Lager - Bronze - Icehouse from Miller
English-Style Brown - Bronze - Sweet George's Brown from Dillon DAM Brewery
American-Style Strong Pale Ale - Silver - Odell IPA from Odell Brewing
American-Style Brown Ale - Gold - Face Down Brown from Telluride Brewing

Congrats to all you winners!

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