Writing about beer really is as wonderful as you might imagine, but it’s not all about drinking and pondering. Think back to those long nights spent hammering out term papers when you were in school. Writing about beer for a living is kind of similar, except when you finish, you reward yourself with a homebrew or craft beer instead of whatever happens to be on sale that week.
One of the many excellent perks of being a beer writer, however, is attending events such as the Craft Beer & Brewing’s Brewers Retreat and getting to call them “work.” Another such event was last week’s thirty-third installment of the celebrated Great American Beer Festival (GABF). Here are just a few of the fully tax-deductible highlights that caught my eye.
Session beer is strong.
For the first time, low-alcohol IPA had its own seat at the grownup table. Session IPA was responsible for 161 of the festival’s more than 6,500 competition entries, the largest ever showing for a debut category.
We still love lupulin.
Four of the top five categories were hops-forward:
- American IPA (336 entries)
- Imperial IPA (208 entries)
- Wood- and Barrel-aged strong beer (179 entries)
- Session IPA (161 entries)
- American pale ale (160 entries)
Pilsner is back.
Craft Pilsner made a strong showing. In fact, the four categories of Pilsner in the competition collectively included 258 entries, more than every category except American IPA. And a panel discussion with Vinnie Cilurzo (Russian River, Santa Rosa, California), Sam Calagione (Dogfish Head, Milton, Delaware), and Matt Brynildson (Firestone Walker, Paso Robles, California), and Master Cicerone Rich Higgins suggested that the American craft Pilsner revival has nowhere to go but up.
Homebrewers rule.
The Pro-Am competition (an opportunity for commercial breweries to team up with homebrewers to vie for top honors) pitted 91 entries against one another, and I had the opportunity to sample a good number of them. A blackberry Gose; a Grätzer (smoked wheat beer of Polish origin); a stout made with toasted coconut; and a brown porter featuring (deep breath) alder-smoked malt, coffee, and vanilla are all evidence of hombrewers’ ongoing commitment to innovation.
On that last note, the number of breweries in the United States passed the 4,000 mark during the second day of the festival. And we would never have gotten there without the dedicated homebrewers whose curiosity turns into the passion that ignites the spark of beer revolution.
Actually, we might have gotten there eventually, but it sounds more dramatic this way.