CBA March Tasting: Belgian Beer Styles / Fruit & Sour Beers

Best sour beers, fruit beers and Belgian-style beers awarded / Special awards go to Germany, Italy, France and Belgium

The world-renowned Belgian beer culture took centre stage in March at Meininger's International Craft Beer Award, which since this year presents itself with a new monthly and seasonally oriented concept. The expert jury of beer sommeliers, brewers and other experts from research and teaching also set out to find the best sour and fruit beers. About 120 beers were put to the critical vote of the experts, and 30 beers ultimately succeeded in winning a medal in the blind tasting. In the particularly popular categories, the jury also crowned the highest-rated beers with one of the following special awards.

 The title "Sour Beer of the Year" goes to the German village of Rethmar near Hanover. The Gutshofbrauerei Das Freie was able to elicit top marks from the jury with its Broyhan, a new edition of the historic Hanoverian beer style, combined with a platinum medal. After several years of research in search of the original taste, the Gutshofbrauerei presented its new edition in 2017, which convinces with a fine play of acidity and ingredients such as violet root, coriander seeds and galangal.

The "Fruit Beer of the Year" from the French brasserie Distillerie du Mont Blanc shows how fruit aromas can be captured in a beer in a perfect, natural way. Their gold medal-winning "La Bleue du Mont Blanc" combines the aromatic power of blueberries with the fine astringency of a beer.

Dubbel is one of the most popular Belgian beer styles with its malt-dominated, spicy structure and dried fruit notes. The expert jury chose an Italian representative as "Dubbel of the Year" with the "Rossa" from Gloria Mundi. This particularly stylish interpretation of the old monastic beer style Dubbel received a platinum medal.

The title "Tripel of the Year" goes to a Belgian legend. Brouwerij Bosteels from the East Flanders municipality of Buggenhout brews its Tripel Karmeliet according to a recipe that dates back to 1679. Here, complex yeasty and fruity notes combine in a perfect way - awarded a platinum medal.

The breweries that did particularly well also include NBeer Craft Brewing from China with one platinum and two gold medals, as well as the Rügen Island Brewery, which won no less than five gold and one silver medal.

"The high proportion of international beers was particularly pleasing this month," sums up Christian Wolf, Director Degustation. "A good two thirds of all the beers entered did not come from Germany". Thus, since its first edition in 2014, Meininger's International Craft Beer Award has made a name for itself both nationally and internationally for its highly professional tasting and evaluation system.

At the next themed tasting in mid-April, the best non-alcoholic beers of the year and particularly successful bock beers will be chosen.

An overview of all medal winners of the March tasting can be found here:
https://www.meininger.de/en/beer/tastings/international-craft-beer-award/results

About Meininger's International Craft Beer Award:
Meininger's International Craft Beer Award was launched in 2014 by Meininger Verlag. Until 2020, the competition took place once a year, with up to 1,200 beer specialities from all over the world being tasted blind by almost 100 national and international beer experts.

With the reorientation to a monthly, theme-specific tasting format, the competition guarantees an even more detailed and now also seasonal beer specialities open tasting and assessment of the submitted beers by a proven expert jury.

Eight years after its premiere, Meininger's International Craft Beer Award is one of the most important beer competitions. With its tasting methodology, the competition sets new standards in the field of beer evaluation. Based on the international 100-point scheme, the beers are not evaluated comparatively, but individually according to appearance, smell and taste by a jury of experts without knowledge of the producer. In addition, the competition describes each beer tasted sensorially in terms of the aromas and attributes typical of the respective beer style. From this, an aroma diagram is created that is comprehensible and understandable for brewers and consumers and gives a first impression of the taste of the beer.

Meininger Verlag is the publisher of numerous beverage publications such as the magazine for beer culture "Meininger's Craft". The media company has demonstrated its tasting expertise for more than 20 years with numerous internationally recognised wine and spirits competitions.

Press contact:
Nicole Zeisset
Meininger Verlag GmbH
Maximilianstr. 7-15
67433 Neustadt/Germany
Phone: +49 6321 89 08 94
E-Mail: [email protected]
Internet: www.craft-beer-award.com