World Beer Cup announces winners

YOU HAVE TO BE pretty good at what you do to win a medal in a competition of 10,213 entries from 2,376 breweries representing 51 countries.

Those are the numbers from this month’s 2023 World Beer Cup, where a panel of 272 judges from 26 countries evaluated and rewarded the efforts of the 307 winners across 103 categories.

The competition, which began in 1996, took place over 18 sessions and nine days.

Previously a biennial event, the competition was annualized last year, making 2022 and 2023 the first back-to-back competitions.

“The World Beer Cup brings together the finest brewers and beers from around the globe and celebrates creativity, craftsmanship, and passion for great beer,” said Chris Williams, World Beer Cup competition director. “Receiving a World Beer Cup award is a testament to quality and innovation, and we commend this year’s winners for setting the bar higher than ever.”

The contest is run by the Brewers Association, a not-for-profit trade group dedicated to promoting and protecting America’s small and independent craft brewers.

Including subcategories, the WBC covers 176 styles, and bestows gold, silver, and bronze awards for each.

While it’s to be expected that the U.S. would have the most entries in this stateside competition, 546 international breweries (22.9%) submitted entries. Newcomers also weren’t shy, as the contest saw a similar number of first-time entrants: 522. Anyone worrying about a home-court advantage for Americans should be comforted by the fact that 105 of 272 judges were international.

The countries with the most entries were the United States, with 8,135, Canada with 444, Japan with 223 and Germany with 189? Australia rounded out the top five with 152 entries.

Not surprisingly, the most entries were in two of the IPA categories: AmericanStyle India Pale Ale, with 412 entries, and Juicy or Hazy India Pale Ale, with 374 entries.

Although there were a possible 309 awards available in the 103 beer style categories, only 307 were awarded. Gold awards were not given in Category 20, Experimental India Pale Ale, or in Category 77, English Ale.

As far as our state of Massachusetts went, only two breweries earned awards: Boston Beer Co. (Sam Adams) earned a silver medal for its Just the Haze, a nonalcoholic beer, and Lamplighter Brewing Co. out of Cambridge nabbed two prizes: a gold for its fruited wood and barrelaged sour, Margot, and a bronze for its Belgian-style sour ale, Borealis.

(It sounds like sour fans might want to take a trip to Cambridge.)

Anyway, these contests are always fun, but don’t be disappointed if your favorite brewery didn’t make the list: Don’t forget, most breweries can’t enter every competition. But congrats to the winners of this year’s WBC.

For more information on the competition, and to see a complete list of this year’s winners, go online to www. worldbeercup.org/

& Craft Car Show

Saturday, May 20 (rain date May 21) White Oak School located at 533 North Road in Westfield, MA is having a Craft and Car Show. It will go from 10:00 - 3:00 with FREE ADMISSION. There will be over 60 vendors, the North Elm Butcher Block food truck, DJ Joanne Daley from River Valley Productions, isles of cars to check out, raffle items, and a 50/50 raffle. We are asking that people please plan accordingly as some vendors, our raffle, and 50/50 will be cash only. If you are interested in bringing your car for the car show, it is free to join, but you can also register it when you get there with a minimum $5 donation for the chance to win one of the awards. White Oak is a very small nonprofit private school (50+ students) for students with learning based disabilities. The profits of this craft fair and car show are going to help provide students with more resources and materials.

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