01 Feb Indiana Breweries Win Big At Best Of Craft Beer Awards
by Indiana On Tap editorial staff
photo credit: Best of Craft Beer Awards
January 31, 2018: Five Indiana craft beer breweries brought home a total of eleven medals from the Best of Craft Beer Awards held in Bend, OR earlier this week. Entries from most states and several countries delivered more than 10,000 beers to the judges, crossing more than 156 styles in 83 categories.
Once again, Indiana led the field. Of the states that won double digit medals (Oregon – 70, Washington – 29, California – 20, Texas – 12, and Indiana – 11), our humble state did the best for medals versus breweries entered and medals versus beers entered. All told, 245 medals were awarded to 152 brewery locations in 38 states. Breakside Brewery was named brewery of the year, with 13 medals won from all three of its Oregon location breweries.
Being held in the Pacific northwest, many more entries were received from states in that area, and the medal counts reflected this slant. This is why I like to normalize the medals by calculating ratios. For instance, even though Oregon won 70 medals, they had a whopping 411 of beers entered. This gave them a medals:entries ratio of 17%. For states with more than 10 medals, Indiana did best in this ratio (11 medals for 56 entries, 20%). Other states ratios were: CA – 10.4%, TX – 11.1%, and WA – 11.9%
image credit: The Tap
Similarly, in number of medals compared to number of breweries entered, Indiana again did the best for states winning significant numbers of medals. Indiana had a medals:breweries ratio of 63%, tying with OR for the top spot. Washington was next with a medals:breweries ratio of 48%, then TX – 45% and CA – 44%. When Indiana craft breweries enter contests, they mean business.
Both The Tap Brewery in Bloomington and Bier Brewery in Indianapolis won three medals, with Taxman Brewing in Bargersville and Flix Brewhouse in Carmel winning two medals, and Sun King taking a Gold medal for Cherry Busey in the Belgian style fruited beer category.
That particular category was good to Indiana, as one of The Tap’s medal was a silver for their Apricot Parship fruited Belgian blonde. The two other medal won by Jarrod and The Tap were a gold for Electric Stinger in the honey beer category (Stinger is a Belgian tripel made with local honey), and a silver for their Kill the Lights Russian imperial stout.
Bier Brewery’s medals included a bronze for their ESB, a silver for their widely regarded Pumpkin Ale, and a silver in the English mild/brown ale category for Barley Buddy Brown. Chris Knott’s Flix Brewhouse continued their run of medals with bronzes for both their Key Lime Mario Gose and for their English barleywine called Omnipresent, while Taxman won a bronze for Tax Saison and a silver in the Belgo-style ale category for the triple hopped Exemption, a Belgian tripel.
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