And the winners are....

The winning beer at any moment is actually the one you have chosen to drink. It is your choice as beer lovers to decide what is best based on your taste. However, there are 23 actual declared styles of beer and beers are officially judged in competitions according to those styles. They are judged for being flawless (lot's of ways beer can go bad and have off flavors) and for being the best to represent the style the brewer has declared the beer to be. Thus, the Indiana Brewer's Cup of the Indiana State Fair has become one of the largest beer competitions in the U.S. with entries from many states and from professional breweries and homebrewers. With over 1,000 entries each year it takes a lot of people to determine which beers best reprent the style the brewer declares and which beers and brewers are 'best.'

Best of Show from Brewers Cup 2012 was....

Homebrew: Shawn Kaus (Jalapeno Cream Ale)

Professional: Upland Brewery (Lambic), Caleb Staton, Head Brewer

Homebrewer of the Year: Tom Wallbank (who walked away with many medals)

Professional Brewery of the Year: Bier Brewery, Darren Conner, Head Brewer (unofficial count:15 medals, 4 firsts)










Professional breweries with the most medals:
(Unofficial, Indianabeer.com calculations)

Bier Brewery of Indianapolis, IN
Crown Brewing of Crown Point, IN
Oaken Barrel Brewing of Greenwood, IN

Special mentions: Bier Brewery and Crown Point Brewery tied for the most First Place wins

RAM Brewery of Indianapolis had the next highest First Place wins

The only brewery to sweep a Category (1st, 2nd, 3rd) was Upland with Sour Beers

Special thanks to sponsors Great Fermentations homebrew supplies, Brewers Guild of Indiana, and Blichmann engineering homebrew equipment.

Our own Nathan was one of the key people behind keeping this competition running this year. And a shout out to buddies Mike Freeman and John Morrical for heading up the competition (Mike) and for organizing stewards (John).

We have to recognize Anita Johnson for her key role in making this competition one of the top in the United States (check out Nathan's interview with Anita on our site)

Nathan and our founder Bob O were both at the celebrations and we hope they will add their own commentary in our blogs