1st Annual Canadian International Beer Championship

[Rob Creighton]

All right, I have to ask.

What the hell is the 1st Annual Canadian International Beer Championship? What's with the really pretentious name? Who was invited to this? Who set it up? Why do we need yet another marginal beer tasting?

I have to admit that I get really tired of some sleezy marketing slime or beer dogooder, hey kids lets put on a show thinking their going to get rich off yet another bad beer contest (see the Beer Stores Fort York effort/Ontario beer awards for another bad version).

Whatever happened to make good beer, sell good beer, drink good beer? Do we really need another $0.14 ribbon to justify getting up in the morning? Or is our media driven, car crash, sensation seeking society so screwed up that we have to cater to all the marketing scum that have the next great (read - bad) idea?

[grub]

<sarcasm>i know i only buy beer with these prestigious awards, which is why my fridge is full of steelback.</sarcasm>

damn, i feel dirty even saying that as a joke...

[GregClow]

Your guess is as good as mine, Rob. I was sent the info by one of the winning breweries, so I went ahead and posted it. Paul Dickey's involvement gives it a bit of credibility, but without seeing a full list of beers that were entered, it's hard to take it too seriously.

[pootz]

All right, I have to ask.

What the hell is the 1st Annual Canadian International Beer Championship? What's with the really pretentious name? Who was invited to this? Who set it up? Why do we need yet another marginal beer tasting?

My simple answer would be that NO we ( Beer purists) don't..I believe craft and micro brewers are harming their credibility with these amateurish non inclusive staged award events.

A medal or award in brewing competition comes not from being the only entry in a style category but from beating out a host of other quality brews in the same category.

There really aren't enough brews/brewers in this region to hold any credible competitive event...perhaps if there were a BJCP event open to ALL Canadian Micros the awards would mean something but for now, anyone who pays the least bit of attention to the craft beer industry realizes these small local impromptu promotional competitions are meaningless as any indicator of a winning brew's inherent quality or status in comparison to other brews of the same style.

From my perspective, pimping your beer with these backwoods competition-deficient awards is a sign of how weak the beer is in standing on its own merits.

Ya want competition and awards that mean something? put your beer in the Brussels show or the national US competition.

As far as this Barrie deal being truly "international" competitve event well.. pffft , look what gets an award in Euro amber lager ...hardly comprehensive

I think there are some BJCP people out there creating credibility problems for the program's reputation for impartial professionalism with such silly promotional crap, not to mention bring doubts about their own certification with conflicted interests.

[Rob Creighton]

Ya want competition and awards that mean something? put your beer in the Brussels show or the national US competition.

Careful Pootz, you're showing how misleading these things can be. By 'Brussels' I am assuming you are referring to the dreaded Monde Selection which coats the walls of Bricks tasting room. That group (or perhaps it's a couple of students in a garret in Brussels) are the biggest joke in the industry. Bottom line; you send them $4000.00 a year and they package up a nice medal based on criteria that I never could understand other than I think they get loaded with their buddies and then cash your cheque and get loaded again.

A classic at Algonquin was the Special Reserve Ale winning a 'Grand Gold' 2 years in a row and the President pre-printing the marketing for our 3rd consecutive. Of course to change it up, they tossed us a silver and Evan went ballistic with about 20 calls to Europe. Our lab guy who organized the whole thing probably heard guys laughing in the background going, 'You silly English knit, I laugh in your general direction'.

Needless to say, Jim Brickman thought the $4000.00 was marketing money well spent. You get a nice scroll and a shiny medal....pathetic.

[wittaker]

By 'Brussels' I am assuming you are referring to the dreaded Monde Selection which coats the walls of Bricks tasting room. That group (or perhaps it's a couple of students in a garret in Brussels) are the biggest joke in the industry. Bottom line; you send them $4000.00 a year and they package up a nice medal based on criteria that I never could understand other than I think they get loaded with their buddies and then cash your cheque and get loaded again.

I think I've found my calling.

[pootz]

Careful Pootz, you're showing how misleading these things can be. By 'Brussels' I am assuming you are referring to the dreaded Monde Selection which coats the walls of Bricks tasting room.

Well no, actually I was thinking of a local Belgian brewing awards comp run by their brewing association....maybe the ones in Munich, London (CARMA) or Possibly the Beverage testing Inst World comp...there are so few with credibility and no conflicted interests.

BTW The "Bought medal" in the Red Baron Room is a well known hoax....the locals take a Brick beer winning an international award as the kiss of death for that brand as all but one which have won the Monde selection or world cup is still brewed...the other award-winning Brick Brands went to the bland beer grave yard in the label downsizing blitz. The triple medal winner was Formosa Draft and the rumor mill has it that Formosa staff have been waiting for the axe to fall on their brands for years

That group (or perhaps it's a couple of students in a garret in Brussels) are the biggest joke in the industry. Bottom line; you send them $4000.00 a year and they package up a nice medal based on criteria that I never could understand other than I think they get loaded with their buddies and then cash your cheque and get loaded again.

Yeah kinda explains why I saw the 1968 gold medal that Dow ale won at the Monde Selection sell on E-bay for 9 bucks Canadian ....and that was to breweriania clollectors.

[Matthew O'Hara]

As brewer for Beau's All Natural, I was naturally pleased with garnering our first gold medal in competition. I believe the fact that it was a BJCP sanctioned competition lends the results some credibility. Furthermore, although the categories were compressed into a bit of a hodgepodge of styles we had, in IMHO, at least two respectable breweries vying for the gold in our category; Mill Street and King. It should also be noted that medals weren't awarded in all three rankings for all categories, where merit wasn't recognized. But hey, Rob, thanks for raining on the parade. Hope things are going well at Grand River!

[viggo]

I like Lug Tread, and you guys can certainly do better than this crapola "competition"

[Matthew O'Hara]

Brewers aren't always aware of of the what the perceived marketing related strenghths or weaknesses of a particular competion might be, especially in the first year of said competion's inception. We're very proud to have done well under the scrutiny of qualified judges. Let's not forget that part of being succesful as a craft brewer is to sell your product. If we can increase awareness by doing well at a competition, why wouldn't we? No apologies for being in this competition or the medal, which I think we deserved.

[JerCraigs]

I respect Paul Dickey's knowledge and opinions, but as others have noted without a full listing of who was entered in which category, it does not help us gauge the validity and/or how well it would conform to our own tastebuds and opinions.

[Rob Creighton]

But hey, Rob, thanks for raining on the parade. Hope things are going well at Grand River!

You're welcome Matt! Back to my original question though. What got you into this? Did you have be represented at the BBQ? If so, considering the seedy rep these guys generated by screwing the people that did the original legwork on it, I'm glad we missed it.

These things are great for the marketing dept to waste time on and no matter how valid or legitimate the contest, it matters not at all. The brewery will make a big splash about being the greatest thing on earth and people (including reporters) will throw out questions and comments about these wonderful results with absolutely no reference point or knowledge of where the facts were generated (see Steelback, Steamwhistle & Wellingtons websites).

So, I guess the reality is we should cut out the effort and just generate mythical results and get on with it. (No sarcasm or cynicism here)

[SteveB]

I'll answer that one for Matt. We did not have a booth at the event and we paid a $55 entry fee for the competition, which I found reasonable. The reason that I wanted to enter this particular competition is because of how disappointed I was with the Ontario Brewing Awards.

Our brewery will not enter the Ont awards again unless it is BCJP certified, because I think that award show gives competitions the bad rep that you and several others are quite justified in ranting about.

I believed that this competition would be fairly judged, so I thought it would be worthwhile for us as a new brewery to be ranked against our peers, for our sake mostly. This is how the application form read for the judging: Judging

The competition judging will occur over the three days of the event by both certified BJCP judges and selected beer enthusiasts. If you are interested in becoming a judge please complete our “Becoming a Judge Application Form”. To request an application: mailto:kirk.cba@rogers.com?subject=Beer Judges Application. The Canadian International Beer Championships management will select judges from a list of internationally recognized brewers, consultants, and media. These individuals will be selected on the basis of: (1) industry and peer recognition; (2) knowledge of beer styles and the brewing process; (3) flavor perception; (4) prior judging or beer evaluation experience; and (5) judging demeanor. Approximately 35 judges will be on site to judge the 26 categories – Judges will not be allowed to judge more than one (1) consecutive hour and a total of three (3) hours per day.

I don't think that the competition got nearly as many entries as they had hoped for, which I agree, diminishes the value of the award, but there was no way for me to know prior to submitting how many would be there.

Anyway, I plan on submitting again to this competition next year, and I hope you'll understand why I feel that a BCJP sanctioned competition with only a handful of entries is more desireable than a non-sanctioned event with 40+.

BTW, I sent the release to Greg C, because I was surprised that there was nothing on it on Bartowel...I thought you guys would be interested as it involved beer in Ontario.

[PRMason]

Steve, it looks like Greg posted the competition on the front page on July 17th.

[SteveB]

Hey Perry,

I guess I wasn't clear enough...earlier in the thread Greg mentioned that he posted the news on the front page after receiving the info from one of the winning brewers.

While I appreciate Greg concealing from the group that it was sent from me, especially due to the rather negative reaction to the news from Rob et al, I have nothing to hide, so I was revealing that the news that Greg posted came originally from me.

I hope you are doing well and hope to see you at Beer Fest.

Cheers,

Steve