Changing of the beer guard

Back in the summer, this magazine asked me to come up with a World Cup Beer Guide, recommending one beer from each country taking part.

The PMA picture editor will never forgive me: rather than the usual lager each country invariably turns out, in most places I found a thriving craft beer scene, allowing me to put forward a rich and varied array of artisanal beers from around the globe… hardly any of which we could find pictures for.

The feature ran without bottle shots. Magazines hate that. Six months later, I’ve just returned from judging the Brussels Beer Challenge, which took place this year in Leuven, home of Stella Artois. In the old Stella brewery, I joined 60 other judges from around the world to evaluate more than 730 beers from 25 different countries.

When the results were revealed after two days of heavy judging, the excited bewilderment I felt while compiling the World Cup feature returned stronger than before.

Styles​

The first thing that strikes you is the breadth and diversity of styles.

Traditionally, different brewing countries each have their own specialisms, and many of them were represented here as categories: German-style Kölsch, English-style IPA and Belgian-style Trappist Blond beers all rubbed shoulders as sub-divisions within the ‘pale and amber ale’ category.

Each came with its own guidelines as to what makes one style of pale and amber ale different from its neighbours. And then there are the new styles breaking out, as different brewing traditions cross-fertilise and new experiments bear fruit.

Roger Protz will curse the inclusion of Black IPA as a category, but anyone fancy a ‘White IPA’? (Sometimes, but not always, a German-style Weizen beer brewed with the hops you’d normally expect in an American-style IPA.) How about a coffee-flavoured beer — so popular now it has its own category?

The array and mix of styles is confusing, often delightful, never less than fascinating. But when you see which beers succeed in each category, things start to get truly weird. Beer styles no longer belong to their country of origin.

They are up for grabs, and anyone can have a go at making the best one. The results sheet reminds me of one of those children’s card games, where you laugh after putting a baker’s head on a policeman’s torso with a ballerina’s legs.

Gold in the Belgian Abbey/ Trappist Blond category goes to a brewery from Spain, with Italy as runner-up. There’s no gold for Altbier, a rare German style supposedly only brewed in the German town of Dusseldorf, but silver goes to the United States and bronze to Brazil. English-style Extra Special Bitter (ESB) a category defined by the Fuller’s beer of the same name, is shared between Italy and the United States. The best Dry Stout is from the Netherlands, the winning Bohemianstyle Pilsner from Poland.

US is best?​

The US certainly stakes its claim as the best brewing nation in the world, winning 53 medals — 10 more than Belgium — including golds for Kölsch, Doppelbock, Porter, Russian Imperial Stout, Gose, Barley Wine and Milk Stout. The number of entries per country varied widely, but the big three were the host country with 198 entries, the US with 174 and Italy with 110. That America won more medals than Belgium with fewer entries is remarkable.

Italy was third in the medal table as well as the number of entries, with 13 medals including five golds. Enter more beers and you’re likely to win more awards, but for a country that most people associate only with Peroni, those five golds signal the growth of a major brewing centre.

France won six golds, and the Netherlands eight. But the big surprise for me was Brazil, with five of 14 entries winning medals — percentage-wise, a higher rate of success than the UK.

UK winner​

So what of the UK in this brave new brewing world? What are we to do when brewers from all continents can seemingly brew our own beer styles better than we can? Well, I’m not writing our obituary just yet. For some reason British brewers haven’t yet embraced this competition, now in its third year.

We only entered 26 beers, compared to France’s 48. And while those beers won only seven medals between them, one of them — Triple C from Thwaites — won gold in the golden ales category, and was then named best beer in the competition.

Good beer has gone global, and the international order is changing. While we can remain justifiably proud of our brewing tradition, and while that tradition is now evolving to embrace styles from around the world, we can no longer simply assume that we are one of the best brewing nations on the planet. We need to get out there and prove it. Thwaites just did, and in doing so, it has spared our blushes for now.