I don’t know any brewer (or vintner or distiller for that matter) who does not enjoy getting awards or good ratings for their products. It’s human nature. But I also think that most of us understand that you have to take any recognition – good or bad – with a judicious dose of skepticism. Who were the judges or reviewers? Do they have any idea what they are talking about? If you get reviewed by a guy in a market where you don’t distribute, how did they even get the beer and was it handled correctly? Given the harsh nature of some of the internet beer reviews I see from time to time (and not just only for my beers!), does this person get their jollies trashing people.? Some of the stuff – good and bad – seems way out of whack for the true relative importance of a bottle of beer!
As for medals and beer competitions - I have taken issue for years with the GABF and their medal program. My problem is simply that, in a category such as IPA where you may have 120 entries, how is it possible to narrow it down to only 3 medals? You can’t tell me that there aren’t at least 40 beers out of that 120 that should receive some kind of recognition. Perhaps it would be better to give the beers a numeric score, and tie the score to a medal. Beers that scored 96 to 100 get a gold, 91 to 95 a silver, and 86 to 90 a bronze (or some such scheme). If you really feel that you “must” have a category winner then award a platinum medal to the grand prize winner in each category.
In my opinion, the point of the GABF is to celebrate the diversity and increasing quality level of American craft beer. How much more impressive would it be if out of 1400 beers entered in the competition, the judges felt that 400 or more merited a medal! That be a very powerful message about how far the quality of craft beer has come! There are many wine competitions and some beer judging venues that already follow this format, so we know that it works and the world has not come to an end.
In the beer review arena – as mentioned above – sometimes there just seems to be too much emphasis on the negative, perhaps almost as if a particular reviewer is more focused on impressing readers with his personal brilliance rather than honestly critiquing the beer. On other occasions it is evident that the reviewer has no real idea what the beer style is supposed to be, and sometimes I have seen a beer judged completely outside of the brewer’s stated style criteria. I really like the fact that people care enough about the beers to make comments – I am thrilled that people are passionate enough to spend time writing down their thoughts. But I am deeply disturbed when people go out of their way to be negative and sometimes downright offensive about a given beer. Too many times I have seen a beer get 15 good reviews and 1 absolutely horrible review. I have even seen instances where the same beer, packaged under two different labels but reviewed by the same person (this happens sometimes with contracts and private labels) gets one positive and one negative review! Which one are you supposed to believe? If anyone has any comment about this please send me an email.
I have a personal bias against the negative approach and a great deal of experience taking a more positive angle. In addition to being a brewer for the last 19 years, I have also been a radio wine reviewer for the last 16 years. My philosophy is that if I like the wine, it goes on the air, if I don’t, it doesn’t. I am just one person, my palate has good and bad days, and my judgment is subjective. Just because I did not particularly care for a given product, it would be arrogant of me to then pronounce it “inferior” to the world.
Finally, in many respects, it really all comes down to the market. A fellow brewer once remarked to me after he received his 2nd GABF Gold Medal for a particular beer – “That’s great. That means I will sell another 200 cases of that beer next year!” This is not to belittle the award (for which he was sincerely grateful and deservedly proud), but rather to point out the economic reality that the greatest true criteria for success is measured in basic economics. If you make the best, most highly praised beer in the world, and no one buys it, was it really a success? While I’m not smart enough to answer that question, it certainly deserves to be asked.
For comments, please email me at hugh@ccbeer.com
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