VA Beer Cup

[chazwicke]

Lyle Brown, posted this on DC beer:

Friday, June 24th, a panel of 3 judges convened to determine the winners in
this year's VA Beer Cup.

The VA Beer Cup is a commercial beer competition open to all VA Brewers,
dedicated to highlighting the quality and diversity of world-class beers
coming out of the Commonwealth. The competition was sponsored by Starr Hill,
and hosted by Old Dominion Brewing Company.

Clipper City's Hugh Sisson, Gordon Biersch's Jason Oliver and Mid-Atlantic
Brewing News' Phil Sides served as judges for the 43 entries sent in by 13
different VA Breweries. The competition was extremely fierce, with 9 beers
advancing to the final round. From those 9, this distinguished panel
selected the top 3 beers in VA.

Winners were announced Saturday afternoon at the Old Dominion Beer Festival:

3rd Place went to New River Brewing Company's New River Pale Ale
2nd Place went to Great American Restaurants (aka Sweetwater Tavern) for
Wit's End
And...

1st place, and the VA Beer Cup perpetual trophy went to St. George Brewing
Company for St. George IPA!



Lyle C. Brown
Judge Coordinator, 2005 VA Beer Cup
beerking@adelphia.net

[chazwicke]

I've never had the Wits End. I like the other two very much though.

[kinjar]

Originally posted by chazwicke
I've never had the Wits End. I like the other two very much though.

I had the Wit from Sweetwater this year and ended up bringing home a growler of it. Actually it was my first real Wit experience. I'm sure I tried it at a beer festival at one time or another, but this year I truly "discovered" the Wit.

I am now have the Victory Brewing Wit beer at home, and again, really enjoying it as a great summer beer.

Any other good Wits out there I should try?

[Katefan00]

My favorite hefeweiss is probably Wurzburger's Julius Echter, with Widmer bringing up a close second. I also really, really enjoy North Coast's Blue Star wheat beer, and can recommend Three Floyds' Gumballhead (thanks to a trade with Bruno!). Ommegang Witte is also good.

K.

[Chris1stva]

I hope that St. G gets some more distribution. I enjoyed their IPA this weekend on tap at the Green Leafe in Williamsburg. If you are ever in Williamsburg, that is the place to go, over 30 beers on tap, the most in the area by far, and a good selection of VA beers.

I also enjoy the St. G porter. I wish they would open a brew pub somewhere.

[chazwicke]

I know they are distributed in our area but are usually relegated to the bottom shelf and the labels are not really all that eye catching but I like them. I'd like to see them marketed a little more prominently too.

[kinjar]

I've never tried anything from St. G. - even at the beer festival. I'm not a huge IPA fan, what else should/can I try (here in NOVA).

[chazwicke]

Here is the link to their home page:

http://www.stgeorgebrewingco.com/about.html

[Chris1stva]

Norms in Vienna carries 3 of their beers, the IPA, the porter and I think an ale.

Again, I personally enjoy the porter.

[chazwicke]

I drank an IPA the other night. It was yummy.