19 Sep Taxman Brewing Cleans up at 2019 World Beer Awards
by Mark E. Lasbury for Indiana On Tap
The World Beer Awards, put on as part of the World Drinks Awards by The DrinksReports.com, posted their worldwide winners on their website September 19th, 2019. Over 3500 entries from more than 50 countries were judged first within their country as round one and then against all country winners for best in style in the world in the round two judging. Not all countries were judged within their own country, only those with the highest number of entries in each general category. Other entries were judged against each other in London on in late July or early August and winners moved on to round two judging for best in style in the world and best in category in the world.
image credit: Taxman Brewing
Beers were gathered into tasting categories, such as dark beer, pale ale, IPA, flavored beer, sour beer, specialty beer, lager, stout & porter, and wheat… with several beer styles judged within each tasting category. First round judging took place in June, July and early August, while all second and third round taste judging and the judging for design was carried on in August in London. Beers to be judged could be submitted by breweries, distributors, importers, or wholesalers and were generally limited to packaged beers.
Taxman Brewing from Bargersville, IN was very successful at the 2019 awards, following up on their wins in the 2018 competition. For 2019, Taxman’s Maple Evasion (2019) was named the Best Flavored Beer in the entire world. Taxman’s Colin McCloy described the beer this way, “Maple Vanilla Evasion 2019 is a special variant of our Evasion Belgian-style Imperial Stout we release near Tax Day every April at our “Death & Taxes Day” Festival. This particular variant was brewed using maple syrup from Head Brewer David Yancey’s own family farm, Yancey’s Sugarbush, in upstate New York. It was then aged with vanilla in specialty maple syrup barrels for several months.”
The styles within the Flavored Beer category were: Chocolate/coffee, stout/porter, wild/sour, fruit/vegetable, herb/spice, maple/honey, low alcohol, smoke, and spirit. Maple Vanilla Evasion was in the maple/honey category and first won best in country for those beer, and then was named best of all countries for maple/honey. Only then did it go up against the other flavored category winners and was named best flavored beer in the world.
image credit: World Beer Awards
Taxman had other wins in the country categories as well. They took top honors in the US for Qualified in the Belgian Dark Strongs, Deduction in the Dark Belgian group, a gold for Mezcal Exemption Barrel Aged Tripel in the Wood Aged beers category, and best in country for Balance of Sour in the Flanders Red group. That’s a lot of winning within one competition, and Colin described it as such, “Being a Belgian-focused brewery, it’s incredibly exciting for us to be featured alongside many of the classic European breweries that inspired us. This is the same competition that put beers like Tripel Karmeliet on the map, so we’re certainly in good company. It’s especially meaningful because of Evasion’s significance to Taxman, as well as David’s family ties to the maple farm. We were already elated to win the “Style Winner” award two years in a row (“Qualified” Quadrupel achieved Best Dark Belgian-Style in 2018), but winning the category this year with Evasion was a whole other level for us.”
Adrian Tierney-Jones, Chair of the World Beer Awards said: “Once again the winners in the World Beer Awards show an exciting snapshot of some of the best beers being brewed across the globe today. Naturally I would like to congratulate these winners, but I would also like to thank the many judges who have applied themselves to their tasks with diligence and great professionalism. I’m already looking forward to next year’s awards.” Congratulations to all the winners in all styles and categories – Taxman’s wins are auspicious as this week is the celebration of the Fifth Taxmanniversary. Check out their Facebook events page or the Indiana On Tap calendar to find all their celebratory events.
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