Heavy Metal Weekend

Although organizers had to cancel the the Great American Beer Festival, judges still gathered to identify the year’s best beers. Lots of breweries are smiling this morning, including winners of 22 medals in Oregon. Some of the awards that caught my attention:

• Silver and bronze to Pelican and Von Ebert in the American IPA categories.

• Gold for to Ex Novo for Perle Haggard in Bohemian Pilsner.

• Two golds to pFriem for Japanese lager and kolsch.

• A hat trick in specialty saison for Alesong, Coldfire, and Von Ebert

• Silver for Block 15 in lambic-style beer.

Ezra has the full list of Oregon winners, and here’s the complete list of all winners.

Also, the North American Guild of Beer Writers announced their annual awards, and Beervana did not win silver this year (as it did the past three). It didn’t win anything—but I was delighted to see that Lars Garshol, Martyn Cornell, and Em Sauter took home the awards. I admire all of them enormously and was delighted to see them win. Martyn has helped transform the way we think about beer history, and Lars has opened up a vast new world to people outside Scandinavia and the Baltics. Their blogs have been enormously important in advancing beer knowledge. Finally, Em Sauter has used her whimsical art to educate a new generation of drinkers.

I didn’t go home empty handed, however. My post on the beers of Lithuania took a gold in travel writing. That was especially satisfying because Beervana hasn’t won an award outside the blog category before. So thanks!

You can see the full list of the winners here, and pay special attention to how many aren’t men. That’s one of the truly amazing changes in our little world, and it pleases me enormously.

Congrats all—