AleSmith Wins 2016 World Beer Cup Champion Brewery & More
Story by:
MyBeer Buzz
From AleSmith:
San Diego, CA(May 9, 2016) — Last week, in the span of several hours, AleSmith Brewing Company received a bounty of good news and validation for multiple members of its wide-ranging family of beers. The morning of May 6, the organizers of Southern California’s largest annual brewing competition, the San Diego International Beer Festival, announced AleSmith had repeated as Champion Brewery for the second straight year. That same evening, winners were unveiled at the 2016 World Beer Cup—a biennial competition that is the brewing equivalent of the Olympics—and AleSmith’s venerable Wee Heavy earned a silver medal in the Scotch Ale category. Recognition of any type at either competition is significant, but to do so well at both represents a major accomplishment AleSmith and its brewing team are extremely proud of and humbled by.
“The news of these recent competition awards makes me so incredibly proud of my dedicated crew,” says AleSmith CEO & brewmaster Peter Zien. “The AleSmith team works so hard to ensure that our beers are brewed to the highest level of quality, so it’s great to see the team receive accolades from their peers. We are always grateful to garner mentions among such a strong and ever-growing field of fellow craft brewers, and will continue to press ourselves to deliver the finest craft-beer to our valued customers.”
Celebrating its tenth year, the 2016 San Diego International Beer Festival featured 1,374 entries (up 44% from 2015) from 254 participating breweries hailing from 14 countries. The Champion Brewery award is bestowed on the brewing company that accumulates the most points earned via medal wins in individual beer-style categories. Four of AleSmith’s beers contributed to the win. Nut Brown English-style brown ale took gold, Horny Devil Belgian-style strong golden ale and Olde Ale imperial English-style ale (renamed to Private Stock Ale earlier this year) won silver, and Old Numbskull American-style barleywine garnered a bronze. All of those beers will be available to sample at the three-day San Diego International Beer Festival (which attracted more than 10,000 event goers in 2015), taking place June 17-19 as part of the San Diego County Fair at the Del Mar Fairgrounds.
With an astounding 6.596 beers from 1,907 breweries representing 55 countries (a 38.5% increase from 2014), the World Beer Cup is the planet’s largest professional brewing competition. Entries falling into 96 beer-style categories were judged by an elite international panel of 253 judges from 31 countries. The average number of beers entered per-category was 69. That, coupled with the fact that only 22 breweries in the world managed to earn more than one award, shows just how competitive World Beer Cup is. Of the aforementioned 1,907 breweries, just 225 earned medals. The Scotch Ale category featured 70 entries, including numerous beers from Scottish and UK breweries, making it all the more impressive that AleSmith, an American outfit aiming to pay homage to this Scottish style, took silver for its tribute. In 2010, AleSmith Wee Heavy won gold at the World Beer Cup. The beer’s extended list of accolades includes gold, silver and bronze medals at the US’ largest annual beer competition, the Great American Beer Festival, plus gold and silver wins at the San Diego International Beer Festival in 2012 and 2013, respectively.
Comments 0
No Readers' Pick yet.