2007 BEER AWARDS

Last night saw the dinner announcing the results of the 2007 Australian Beer Awards. Conducted by the Royal Agricultural Society of Victoria and held at The Sofitel in Melbourne, the awards recognise the achievements of brewers from Australia and around the globe.

The results are always interesting and rarely are they met with unanimous agreement - the average punter certainly scans the result with only a passing interest, as the beers chosen as Grand Champions are often difficult or near impossible to find - and the chosen few are seldom seen as representative of what the average drinker prefers. This last point is not a bad thing, as, if the judging were left to the average drinker then the Grand Champion for the last ten years would have been a tie between VB and 'those VB's that came in cans what looked like cricket shirts wiv nubers and shit on them' with the silver going to VB stubby.

Having said that, the award winners this year are a mixed bunch in terms of availability and popularity.


GRAND CHAMPION
Weihenstephan Kristall


PREMIERS TROPHY - Best Victorian Beer
Stella Artois

CHAMPION AUSTRALASIAN BREWERY
Colonial Brewing Company - Western Australia


CHAMPION LARGE INTERNATIONAL BREWERY
Deschutes Brewery, Oregon USA

CHAMPION SMALL INTERNATIONAL BREWERY
Colonial Brewing Company - Western Australia

CHAMPION SPECIALTY BEER
Feral White - Feral Brewing Co WA

CHAMPION WHEAT BEER
Weihenstephan Kristall

CHAMPION LAGER
Timisoreana - Ursus Brewery Ukraine

CHAMPION ALE
Little Creatures Pale Ale - WA


CHAMPION STOUT
Obsidian Stout - Deschutes Oregon

CHAMPION PORTER
Redoak Baltic Porter

The Herald Sun in Melbourne (in a tiny corner of page 29) lamented that the rules need addressing as many winning entries were available only over specialist sites on the Internet and that . . . "it was the sixth time in seven years a rarely seen beer had taken the top honour." Pardon me for drinking, but there are, as we speak, TWO examples of Weihenstephaner Kristall in the Beer Bloke fridge as we speak - plus some TWO DOZEN empties collected over the past two months awaiting refilling with Beer Blokes Wheat Beer! And a well known liquor retailer whose name shall be kept nameless unless they wish to sling me some product in contra and it rhymes with Ban Furphy's, has shelves of this and other Weihenstephaner beers.

If I were to be critical I guess I could have a crack at Stella Artois being voted by the Premier as the best Victorian produced beer. Nothing against Stella - love a pint - but the Stella produced in Abbotsford is hardly the best example of Stella going round and is probably one of many standard golden lagers available. Maybe the Premier as the Minister For the Wharehouse Full of Mirrors needs to convene a committee to "leave it with me and I'll look into it."

I was also critical of last years Grand Champion, Redoak Special Reserve, not because it was rubbish but because it is very difficult to find out if it's rubbish. You could only get this beer by booking a table of ten or more at the Redoak restaurant. This is a fault of the judging criteria not Redoak and wants looking into. It would be easier to get drinkers to locate Tony Mokbel and recite the regulations of stage four water restrictions than to try this beer.

More soon.

For the full results of the awards log on ;
http://www.beerawards.com