What’s On Tap – The California Beer Newsletter

Here are the Northern California winners of professional judging at the 2006 Great American Beer Festival announced in the last hour. Complete results here.

Small Brewery Company and Small Brewing Company Brewer of the Year Sponsored by Microstar Keg Management

Bear Republic Brewing Co., Healdsburg, CA Richard G. Norgrove

Category: 2 American-Style Wheat Beer - 23 Entries

Gold: Pyramid Crystal Weizen, Pyramid Breweries, Seattle, WA (and Berkeley, CA)
Silver: William Jones Wheat Beer, El Toro Brewing Co., Morgan Hill, CA

Category: 13 Aged Beer (Ale or Lager) - 28 Entries

Gold: Triple Exultation - 2004, Eel River Brewing Co., Fortuna, CA
Silver: Hibernation Ale 2005, Great Divide Brewing Co., Denver, CO
Bronze: World Wide Stout, Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, Milton, DE

Category: 16 German-Style Pilsener - 40 Entries
Gold: Organic Pilsner, Butte Creek Brewing Co., Chico, CA
Silver: Eagle Pride Pilsener, Elk Grove Brewery and Restaurant, Elk Grove, CA

Category: 32 Golden or Blonde Ale - 41 Entries

Gold: Kiwanda Cream Ale, Pelican Pub & Brewery, Pacific City, OR
Silver: Korruption K

I wandered out of the GABF last night and walked to Wynkoop, the brewpub founded by Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper long before he was mayor.

The place was jammed and I wound up sitting at a table with six folks from Los Angeles, who fly out here every year just for the fest. They got here Friday, found out the festival is SOLD OUT! That’s right. They told me there are no more tickets. That means 30,000 people-plus, according to the organizers.

If that’s right, it’s still far from the largest American beer festival. The record belongs to the Oregon Brewer’s Festival, held at the end of July each year in Portland. Over four days, the crowd exceeded 55,000.
\But for the number of brewers represented and the number of beers on tap for punters, it’s by far the biggest, plus 1,600 beers, over 400 breweries represented.

In the crowd numbers game, the Great British Beer Festival drew 60,000 plus this year.

That’s nothing, of course, compared to Oktoberfest in Munich, which is expected to draw about 6 million this year. It lasts 18 days and ends October 3.

This all proves that good beer is on a roll, in the U.S. and in Europe. Sales in America (and I’m sure in Canada as well) are solid.

At a press event Saturday, the Brewers Association’s Ray Daniels said craft beer sales continue to grow. “We’re in our third consecutive year of really nice (sales) growth,” he said. “Sales were up 7 percent in 2004, up 9 percent in 2005 and in the first half of 2006, sales are up 11 percent,” Daniels said.

Hey. I’ll drink to that.

The GABF is a sellout.
Preliminary crowd estimate
is 31,000 plus.
What’s it like at this giant of a festival? Here’s a selection, taken Friday night by
our photographer,
Denver freelancer Gregory Daurer.

All good witches drink good beer.

The Long Necks.

Credit: Gregory Daurer/Denver

Boundary Bay head brewer Ed Bennett with the Alpha King Friday afternoon, Sept. 30 at Falling Rock Tap House in Denver. Bennett’s Imperial IPA was named the Alpha King.

Long Live the Alpha King

The hoppiest beer in America? It may or may not be Boundary Bay Imperial IPA from the Boundary Bay Brewery & Bistro in Bellingham, WA.

One thing for sure, it’s the Alpha King. This giant, 9 percent, 100-plus IBU (International Bitterness Units, a Bud has 13 IBU) beer won the eighth annual Alpha King Contest this afternoon (Friday, Sept. 29) at Falling Rock Tap House here in Denver. It’s held each year at Falling Rock on the second day of the Great American Beer Festival.

This contest, sponsored and created, naturally, by Hop Union, Yakima, WA, a major supplier of hops to craft brewers, by Brewing News, the national brewspaper, and White Labs, San Diego, a supplier of yeast to craft brewers. (Full disclosure: I write articles for Northwest Brewing News.)

Ralph Olson, of Hop Union, said there were 65 entries this year, up from 35 last year. Second place winner was Hop Suey from Pizza Port, Carlsbad, CA; third, was Wipeout IPA, also from Pizza Port, Carlsbad and brewer Jeff Baghy.

Last year’s winner was Alpha King IPA from Three Floyds, Munster, IN.

What brought victory? Boundary Bay head brewer Ed Bennett and his assistant Anthony Stone said the answer is great balance. The beer has a ton of hops: Amarillo, Centennial, Simcoe

Ok it’s the first running of the err_ waitaminute…It’s the first night of the Great American Beer Festival in Denver and I’m running from pillar to post, sleuthing out the best beer, saying hello to Northern California brewers in this vast, vast hall.

I’ve already posted the highlight of the night

Note: I’m reprinting my Beer of the Week column fronm Dec. 12, 2005 for background on Alaskan Smoked Porter. bd.

Beer of the Week: Alaskan Smoked Porter 2005

Know someone who’s prone to shudder and say, `Oh - I don’t like dark beer!’ Don’t argue, serve a glass of Alaskan Smoked Porter.
On the surface everything about this beer is what dark beer haters mean when they shudder. It’s smoked; it’s porter, a strange name

At the Great American Beer Festival...Do you squirrel away bottles of great beer that you really like? I do. I have, for instance, in an old dorm refrigerator in the garage, a single sample of the last seven or eight Sierra Nevada Barleywine Style Ales. I never touch them because

On the way to the GABF…

Made it to Flying Dog to try their GABF special: Colorado Saison****. It’s sensational, I kid you not. A dusty unfiltered gold, with a spicy nose and a taste of malt and spice with a kind of effervescent tingle on the tongue from the sugar added to the beer that lasts into a long follow. It comes in a 750 ml., corked, Champagne-style, bottle. Truly a splendid beer.

Credit: GregoryDaurer

I would love to compare this one side by side with Saison Dupont, the Belgian beer that made this ancient, Belgian, farmhouse-style beer famous today. More about the beer, but first…

The reason I’m writing about it tonight is that Flying Dog Sales Director Kevin Hogan says there’s a fair chance it may make it to the San Francisco Bay Area. Here’s what has to be done: Call Flying Dog’s distributor, Wine Warehouse in Richmond, CA (510) 215-3600 and ask them to carry it. Another way to create buzz is to talk to your favorite beer retailer: Berkeley Bowl or the person you know at your local Beverages and More, for instance.

Hogan guesses it will retail for about $12, when it reaches us in California. OK, that’s a lot

At the GABF…

Despite the hype, Denver isn’t really Beertown.USA, take a one block walk from the clubs and brewpubs around Coors Field and you’re back in regular America.

For instance, I’m staying at the Holiday Inn and the beers offered at dinner last night were: Bud, Miller, Coors and Heineken. I ordered a Blue Moon, Belgian-Style Ale** by Coors.
They served it was a slice of orange stuck on the glass.

It was served too cold, but once it warmed up, it was an OK Belgian style wit or white wheat beer. Spicy, lemony nose. Decent malt flavor.

Then, I looked up at the TV screen, realized the Rockies were playing at nearby Coors Field, which has, I believe, the only brewpub in a Major League ballpark. It’s open evenings only when the Rockies play. Hey! Maybe this is Beertown, after all.

I jumped on the hotel shuttle and 10 minutes later I was at the gate. (It’s fairly easy to get around in Denver). I convinced the ticket taker that I was here only for the brewpub and they GAVE me a ticket. (This is truth.). It’s a great place to see a ballgame. Seems a lot more accessible than the Giants park. You walk in the front gate and you are there. The field’s right below with seats extending down to field level.

The brewpub’s in a back corner and you can’t see the field from a barstool, which is unfortunate. But there are TV screens with the game on everywhere. Place was fairly full, kids are allowed. Nobody was watching the game

DENVER