Sixteen Bay Area breweries triumphed at the recent World Beer Cup competition held in Nashville, Tenn., bringing home gold medals for a lineup that includes Danville Brewing, Alameda’s Faction Brewing and Emeryville’s Wondrous Brewing.
The World Beer Cup, which is run by the Brewers Association, the same group that hosts the annual Great American Beer Festival, welcomes entries from breweries around the world. Although entries were down slightly this year, as many parts of the world are still recovering from the pandemic, 10,213 entries were sampled by 272 judges (I was privileged to join them once again) from around the world.
American-style IPAs accounted for the most popular category, followed closely by juicy or hazy IPA and the German-style Pilsener category rounded out the top three, suggesting that craft lagers are here to stay.
The list of gold medal winners included Wondrous Brewing, which opened in 2021, for its Janet’s Brown Ale, a tribute beer to longtime local home-brewing legend Mike “Tasty” McDole. Also winning gold: Tracy’s Morgan Territory for its Hoptomic Imperial IPA; Danville Brewing’s Lucky Four Leaf, a classic Irish-style stout; and San Francisco’s Fort Point Beer Co. for Yuzu KSA, a fruit beer.
Faction Brewing, the only Bay Area brewery to bring home two medals this year, took a gold for its Pale 586 and a silver for Black Hoodie in the German-style schwarzbier category. Other silver medals went to Concord’s Epidemic Ales for its Limelight fruit beer, San Jose’s Clandestine Brewing for its Philly Special rye beer, Richmond’s Armistice Brewing for Fog Harvest in the juicy/hazy strong pale ale category, and Monterey’s Alvarado Street Brewery for its Silver Double Cone imperial IPA.
Bay Area bronze medal winners include San Leandro’s 21st Amendment for El Sully, San Francisco’s Bartlett Brewing for Painted Devil, Santa Rosa’s HenHouse Brewing for Best Life, San Leandro’s Drake’s Brewing for Drake’s Irish Red Ale and Berkeley’s Fieldwork
for Night Maker.
Find the full list and further details at www.worldbeercup.org.
𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗶𝘁𝘀, 𝗖𝗼𝗽𝘆𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 & 𝗖𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘁𝗲𝘀𝘆: www.mercurynews.com
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