There were plenty of winners and very few losers when it comes to the 2013 RateBeer Best but here's the handful that really stuck out for me.
The Winners:
Hill Farmstead - Greensboro, VT: These guys took care of business this year. #1 overall brewery in the world, 4 beers in the top 50 overall, 14 of the top 50 newly released beers including a whopping 8 of the top 10 (WOW!), and they had 31 different beers medal in 8 different style categories. No one else was anywhere close to these guys this year, bravo.
Tired Hands - Ardmore, PA: The #2 new brewery, selected from more than 1900 new breweries. They had 2 beers medal and 3 in the top 50 newly released. They were also ranked the #51 brewery overall. To put this into a little better perspective, the top 100 represents less than 1% of all active breweries, which means in their first year of operation Tired Hands is considered to be in the top 0.5%. Not too shabby.
Craft Beer Drinkers - Planet Earth: The craft beer revolution continues to explode; even the newest breweries are making exceptional, world class beer. Seasoned breweries are keeping the pace and continuing to push the limits of what beer can be; delivering us a steady stream of unique, hand crafted offerings to satisfy our cravings and keep us coming back for more. Thank you.
The Losers:
Troëgs - Hershey, PA: No medal winners, not even Nugget Nectar. My all time favorite was a top 5 IPA last year and this year didn't even crack the top 15. They were also ranked #50 overall last year and this year fell completely out of the top 100. A pretty poor showing for a brewery that has an excellent year round lineup, some nice seasonals and a brewery exclusive series that churns out a ton of new beers every year that could easily make their way into regular rotation. Then again, I have a hardcore bias for these guys. Better luck next year boys.
Pennsylvania: A bit depressing really. Being my home state I carry an unavoidable prejudice, that being said, I still know what great beer taste like and there is a plethora of it here. We still landed 3 breweries in the top 100, Tired Hands had a fabulous rookie season and Victory had several medal winners but PA is top 5 in these here United States. You can argue we could be as high as 2 (unfortunately California is an absolute power house). Sorry if I sound whiney but I just wasn't feeling the love this year.
In the end there are no real losers but you always want to see your favorites do well. Now it's time to spend another year seeking out as many of these whales as possible!
Drink On,
Dan
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