The World Beer Cup is over and the "Olympics of Beer" announced its winners on May 6 in an awards ceremony held in Philadelphia. A total of 287 awards were handed out for 96 beer style categories.
What's The World Beer Cup?
The World Beer Cup is one of the largest competitions in the world for commercial beers, pitting small and independent craft brewers against each other to discover the best of the best in the industry. This year, 1,907 breweries participated, churning out 6,596 beers for an international panel of judges to evaluate.
The event started in 1996 and is held every two years. In 2014, there were 4,754 entries to the World Beer Cup.
The 2016 World Beer Cup Winners
There were actually 288 possible awards (PDF) to be given in the World Beer Cup, but the judges (253 beer experts from 31 countries) did not present a gold award for the Fresh or Wet Hop Ale category. All other 95 categories in the competition were each given gold, silver and bronze awards.
Coincidentally, there are 253 breweries who won awards, some of which were recognized more than once. There were 28 that got more than one award, in which 22 won two awards while six got their hands on three.
Each category also saw an average of 69 entries. However, the American-Style India Pale Ale category saw the most competition with 275 entries. Other most-entered categories in the World Beer Cup are Imperial India Pale Ale (181 entries) and American-Style Pale Ale (167 entries).
According to World Beer Cup Competition Manager Chris Swersey, the judges commented that overall beer quality is still improving across various beer styles all over the world. And while breweries may be the ones given awards, beer drinkers are the real winners in the competition.
The Brewers Association
A nonprofit trade group aiming to promote and protect small and independent craft breweries in the United States, the Brewers Association (BA) represents more than 70 percent of the brewing industry, with its members producing more than 99 percent of all beer brewed in the country.
Aside from the World Beer Cup, the BA organizes other events like the Great American Beer Festival, Homebrew Con, American Craft Beer Week and the National Homebrew Competition.
