USA: The results from the 2006 World Beer Cup

The results from the 2006 World Beer Cup announced on April 15, showed that American mastery of brewing spans the world's major beer cultures from Bavarian weizens to Belgian wits-far surpassing the skills of any other brewing country.

Pitted against the best breweries in the world and evaluated by an international cadre of judges, American brewers medaled in 73 of the 85 style categories in the 2006 World Beer Cup and took four of the five Champion Brewery and Brewmaster awards.

"No country in the world makes award-winning beers in so many styles as America's craft brewers," said Charlie Papazian, President of the Brewers Association which conducts the World Beer Cup competition.

Brewers from Germany showed the second greatest breadth of brewing skill, medaling in 18 style categories while brewers from Japan, Belgium and Australia each medaled in 9 of the 85 categories. Thus, American brewers medaled in four times the number of style categories of any other brewing country.

"These results show why today's American beer culture is widely admired by beer experts all over the world," said Ray Daniels, Director of Craft Beer Marketing for the Brewers Association. "American brewers have mastered the beers of Europe and innovated a whole range of new flavors as well."

American expertise in brewing goes beyond general capability to specific prowess in every family of beer. This is demonstrated when World Beer Cup styles are grouped by geographic origin and beer type: American-style Ales (13 styles), Specialty Beers (11 styles), British-style Ales (21 styles), German-style Ales (6 styles) , Belgian-style Ales (9 styles) and Lagers (23 styles). In each of these six groupings, American brewers won more medals than any other single country, besting native brewers in their traditional styles.

"While these results are great news for American brewers, they also tell us something about American beer drinkers," said Daniels. "In order for breweries to make a beer, they must have consumers to drink it. So the breadth of beer styles made in the US indicates the diversity of beer styles and flavors consumed in the US compared to other countries around the world."

The 2006 World Beer Cup competition included 2221 entries from 540 breweries in 56 countries. Judges evaluate the entries to award first, second and third place medals in each of 85 categories. This year's judge panel involved 109 brewers and beer experts from 18 countries with 54 judges coming from outside the US. Judging is done "blind" so that judges do not know the identity of the beers or what breweries are entered into the competition when they are evaluating the beers. Three to four judges evaluate each beer and then a panel of six to seven judges determines the medal winners in each category.

World Beer Cup 2006 sponsors include Barth-Haas Group, Sahm, Ball Corporation, Brigl & Bergmeister, Durst Malz and Siemens AG. For more information about World Beer Cup 2006 visit www.WorldBeerCup.org.

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