New York State entries took only eight of the 324 awards handed out by judges in the just-completed 2016 U.S. Open Beer Championships in Oxford, OH, and two of them were for root beer.Domestic and foreign breweries sent in nearly 5,000 brews -- no word on how many in total were from New York -- presenting nearly 100 different styles in a competition that included professional breweries and award-winning home-brewers.
Firestone Walker Brewing from Paso Robles, CA, was named "Grand National Champion" by winning three gold medals (for its Union Jack IPA, Double Jack, and Parabajava), one silver medal and a bronze. Melvin Brewing from Jackson, WY, placed second and Cigar City Brewing from Tampa, FL, third.
In addition to the serious awards, the judges -- from the U.S., England, and Canada -- selected a top 10 list of what they thought were the most creative names among the brews. They were, in order from No.1 : Wit or Wit Out You; Tall, Dark and Mandarin; Shitnit; Big Booty Golden Ale; Sexapeel; Bolshevik Bastard; You Bretta Run; Guava the Hutt; There Gose My Heart, and Toxic Sludge Black IPA. Two of those were from Long Island brewers -- Shitnit by Port Jeff Brewing, and Toxic Sludge by Blue Point Brewing, which walked off with a trio of awards.
The other New York medal winners:
Rye/Roggen Beer -- Gold medal, Rastafa Rye Ale, Blue Point Brewing, Patchogue, Suffolk County
Robust Porters -- Silver medal, Asylum Porter, 42 North Brewing of East Aurora, Erie County
Gose -- Silver medal, Gose, Blue Point Brewing
Belgian Witbier -- Bronze medal, Beach Beer, Port Jeff Brewing, Port Jefferson, Suffolk County
Hard Root Beer -- Bronze medal, Jed’s Hard Root Beer, F.X. Matt Brewing Company, Utica, Oneida County
Non-Alcoholic Root Beer -- Silver medal, Saranac Root Beer – F.X. Matt Brewing
Go here for the full list of all awards.
6 comments:
From Paul Leone (via Facebook):
This is actually a good one worth doing. I know Dow Scoggins who runs it, and the reputation is building. Worth doing next year, but I hate articles like these as the head line assumes NYS beer didn't win because it's not good enough. Truth is, I doubt many entered.
Capital Region Brew Trail (via Facebook):
As noted in the story, it was not known how many NYS brews were entered.
From Kevin Mullen (via Facebook):
Same with me. I see a ton of these competitions in our email spam folder and once I see high entrance fees then think about shipping costs and not much information on who is running the event or judging I delete them. We would go broke trying to keep up with all the competitions.
From Paul Leone (via Facebook):
Dow Scoggins, how many NYS breweries enter your competition?
From Sam Pagano (via Facebook):
I don't even know what this is.
From Gregg Stacy (via Facebook):
First I heard of it. Thousands of these things popping up.
Post a Comment