Ontario brewing awards forever tainted

[Derek]

Ontario brewing awards - Best seller: Coors light

It wasn't developed in Ontario, it's not even Canadian owned... but I guess it is brewed here.

[Rob Creighton]

The Fort York beer fest has long been a Beer Store/megabrewer promotions piece of crap and this is yet another tacky effort at discrediting the craft brewing industry and making themselves look legit. That became very obvious to me when I was asked to judge a few years ago and I was sitting next to Labatt marketing exec and again Miss Josie who admitted she didn't drink beer.

The problem is, we (the craft brewers) continue to help this group (I think its called Cottage Creek) that I believe also owns the Mill St. pub. They (the mega's) have the time, the money and the personnel to undermine and slowly damage our efforts and we seem to line up to legitimize this effort.

I, for one, am steering clear of anything to do with these sleazes and will make every effort to expose them for what they are. These are not friends of quality beer in any way, shape or form.

[Ale's What Cures Ya]

The creditable brewers of Ontario should boycott this nonsense. Refuse to accept their awards or something along those lines.

[Uncle Bobby]

[POST REMOVED BY THE AUTHOR -- P.M. IF YOU ARE INTERESTED.]

Congratulations Ken and Michael! You deserve every credit you get. Although in this particular instance, it would appear that your beers were pearls cast before swine.

[flip]

What a retarded list. Who was on the panel? A bunch of idiotic frat-tards sampling with a funnel?

Well...

Chris Kelly – Chris spends eight hours of his day as a mild mannered Software Engineer at a Fortune 500 company...

That idiotic frat-tard is me. (Glad I didn't get any bold highlighting... was it the home brew reference?). Another idiotic frat-tard on the list who got the bold treatment a friend who extended the invitation to me. He knows at least as much about beer as me and probably more. So feel free to knock me, too, because I'm also nerd by day am not directly employed by the brewing industry nor am I BJCP certified. If asked by an organizer to give a two sentence blurb about what they do and their judging strengths I'm not sure what everyone would write...

I was a judge in one of the three sessions. My session consisted of Amber Lager, Cream Ale, Pale Ale, Amber Ale and Bitter. I tasted one Steelback sample in the Amber Lager category and it did horribly, as I expected it would (my crib sheet's at home and I can't remember which it was). Everyone will be happy to know that when it came to Bitters Granite absolutely destroyed the competition. I must admit that I was quite surprised by Buzz beer. It was something I'd never considered before. Another surprise was that Church Key Northumberland Ale faired pretty poorly because the bottle seemed contaminated somehow...

My friend was there for the Steelback winners and said that compared to the other samples they tasted pretty good. And that he feels a bit dirty for it. I find some of the results particularly disappointing because of how they're likely to be manipulated.

Overall, I'd echo Rob's comments about his experience with judging. Of the panel I was involved with, I'd say about 50% were fairly serious beer aficionados where as the other 50% either knew nothing about beer or didn't care that much for it (including some people from the TBS. Open Rhetorical Question: why work for a company if you don't like their major product?) The categories were a little odd, too. However, all those who have ever seen TBS's categorization of beer shouldn't find any of this surprising.

Perhaps it would be a good idea for the Ontario Craft Brewers to organize their own exclusively for Ontario Craft Brewers. That would likely solve a few weaknesses here as it could ensure that:

• - everyone involved is pretty serious about craft brewing;
  - everyone has breweries that people could attempt to visit and have a hope of seeing;
  - everyone is doing all grain brewing;
  - judge selection could be more discretionary;
  - (personal preference) instead of giving hard 1/2/3 rankings perhaps rank beers based on the aggregate score and rating all those above a certain score as 1/2/3

BTW: this term "frat-tard": putting that in my pocket to use later. Although adding "idiotic" is a bit of overkill given what the "tard" portion is likely to refer to...

[Edit] <snip> Removed previous edit. Never to be seen again </snip> [/Edit]

[Uncle Bobby]

flip,

It's my Dad's birthday, so you get a mulligan. I was probably being harsh, too, and that is not conducive to the generally good-natured atmosphere that prevails on BarTowel. Additionally, the foolish nature of the bios as they wre drafted by some ad-monkey in the macro-brewing industry should have been parody enough.

But I will say this. You loaned your good name, your credentials and ultimately your credibitlity to this farce. And the corporate behemoth behind this nonsense abused it. Not just you, but all of the credible judges on the panels. All of you should have displayed better judgement about what you were getting into here. People's livelihoods are at stake.

-Uncle Bobby

[JerCraigs]

All of you should have displayed better judgment about what you were getting into here. People's livelihoods are at stake.

\
Oh come on now, as bad as Steelback is it isn't going to KILL you... oh wait... livelihoods.

As much as I want to jump all over these awards, I think a large percentage of the problem is the categories themselves. Many of them only have a certain number of entries, some of which are questionable - Best Sellers being the most obvious.

[GregClow]

All of you should have displayed better judgement about what you were getting into here. People's livelihoods are at stake.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, Bobby, but are you honestly suggesting that the results of these awards could have such an effect on sales that breweries that don't win could be forced out of business?

If so, I think you're giving them way too much credit. Sure, we'll undoubtedly see a couple of obnoxious press releases from Steelback crowing about their wins. Maybe they'll even sell a few more SteelTubs of their product. But I highly doubt that these awards will cause anything more than a very minor ripple in the sales of most of the breweries involved, particularly the smaller ones that have a fairly loyal fanbase.

Complaining about this situation is one thing, but suggesting that brewers are going to be driven out of their livelihoods because of some awards that the majority of the general public neither know nor care about is pretty extreme.

[pootz]

Chris Kelly – Chris spends eight hours of his day as a mild mannered Software Engineer at a Fortune 500 company...

That idiotic frat-tard is me. (Glad I didn't get any bold highlighting... was it the home brew reference?).

Yes that's about the size of it Flip. Home brewers got a pass from my wrath.

Please note I never called you any juvenile names nor implied any Flip. I merely did a cut and paste of the contest promo copy and underlined primarily the marketers and beer retards in an attempt to graphically say what Rob C openly stated.

In any serious beer judging event ( and home brewers who compete know what I'm talking about here) it is important that 3 things are evident in the contest:

1) The Judges have credibility and skills for their task ( either experienced brewers or tasters or BJCP certified with experience)

2) The judges are impartial ( have no conflicted interests in who wins what or in promoting/selling any item on the tables)

3) The samples to be judged are properly categorized and of equivilent craft measue. ( we don't stack pils against an extreme IPA any more than we stack commercial adjunct and extrat brewed sudz against craft or specialty brewed micros..we don't compare apples with oranges)

From my observasions all these tenets of proper contest were flummoxed in this cheap promotional stunt ( I understand why Frank would gravitate to cheap promotional stunts )

So, from what you have said Flip, my (highligted) assessment of the judging layed out fairly accurate...about 50 % of the lot were either conflicted or no-taste promo flakes and the others were there to judge as best as their skills merited.

I Echo what Bobby has said and I sympathize with you and other tasters with integrity for having lent your credibility to what was obviously a corporate brewing marketing promotion farce.

I also see that Rob C is prophetic in stating the mega brewers will try to sap off ( for their own fizzy mass produced slop) the credibility gained by the craft brewers for quality, simply by association in these promotional matchups...as if coors light deserves to be in a contest with real traditionally brewed lagered beer.

This "contest" made no distinction in category and tasting between crafted beer and mass produced slop...that was intentional and calculated...and artists like Micheal, Phil and others have been suckered by having their artisanship ripped off by corporate brewing vampires in these lame "match ups" which propose to put mass produced beer in contest with real traditionally brewed beer as if they were "equals" before unqualified/biased judging which either knows no better or is skewing the contest to a preordained result.

As I said, I can see D'Angelo wearing a shit eating grin today thinking he has bought credibility/legtimacy that his extract slop can compete with the beers produced by craft brewers...and that only happened because some promotional idiocy staged an event that forced them both into the same category....this is dangerous because it adds validity to the stupid mouthings you get from buck a beer morons who say there's no difference between "them fancy-assed beers and good ol' XYZ brand corn fizz"

The thread's title aptly states this award is now "tainted" and it certainly has proven out to be. I'm sure the OCBA will be taking Rob's suggestion about breaking ties with the mega brewing promotional element that staged this farce.

Perhaps it would be a good idea for the Ontario Craft Brewers to organize their own exclusively for Ontario Craft Brewers.

Agreed! Open it to home brewers too... And with the gross results of this OBA farse riding on craft brewer's backs, we need a contest where macro brews can be judged by brewers and craftsmen against artisan beers...the results will be distinctly differnt.

[pootz]

The creditable brewers of Ontario should boycott this nonsense. Refuse to accept their awards or something along those lines.

If I was Brick or other craft beer brewers that ranked below the D'angelo slop I'd turn the medals back in and refuse it....Frank can have his "win" but not a "victory" over craft beer.

[Derek]

Put your money where your mouth is?

Some of the Steelbacks are available by the can... so if they weren't donated, it wouldn't cost much. (I'm still thankful I never tried one of their 2-4's).

We might think they're a little plain, but at least it seems they've got their QA issues under control.

I tried a couple of the early ones (both had went off & were seriously aweful). I did try a Bruce County Wild last year though (thanks to steelbackguy). It wasn't bad (on par with Labatt blue?), but I still wasn't sure how to rate it.

[flip]

Yes that's about the size of it Flip. Home brewers got a pass from my wrath.

Please note I never called you any juvenile names nor implied any Flip. I merely did a cut and paste of the contest promo copy and underlined primarily the marketers and beer retards in an attempt to graphically say what Rob C openly stated.

No problem, pootz. I probably should have added a few more s in there because I agree with your assessment. Besides, I did withhold the right to re-use the expression.

[pootz]

Put your money where your mouth is? .

Oh I have Derek... I have bought or shared just the number of Steelback beers needed to do a tasting of the product line....I'd consider it a blasphemy to buy more than 6 SBs of the same kind intentionally....given a choice between Tiverton extract process slop beers or nothing, I'll go thirsty.

[grub]

Oh I have Derek...

and those reviews over on BA are some of the best, funniest stuff i've ever read. definitely required reading (but hopefully not while you're drinking anything - beer out the nose = bad). thanks for taking one (many) for the team on that

[viggo]

You gotta give Steelback points for complexity! I find it difficult to pick out all the different landfill flavours/aromas.