The North American Guild of Beer Writers announced the winners of its 2nd annual beer writing contest earlier this month at a ceremony held during the Great American Beer Festival in Denver.
The contest highlights excellent writing about beer in a variety of contexts including Beer and Food writing, Best Blog, Best Book, Best Brewspaper/Free Zine writing, Best Magazine writing, Best Newspaper writing (paid circulation), Best Online Magazine writing, and Best Podcast.
Three blogs I regularly follow took all three awards in the Best Blog category. They are good ones to add to your reading list. (Note I said “add,” and not replace, this one.)
Taking 1st place again this year is Literature and Libation by Oliver Gray. Oliver combines smart writing with thought-provoking commentary and more than a touch of curiosity to create storytelling that just happens to be about beer. Hate beer reviews? Try one of Oliver’s and you’ll forget you’re reading one.
Bryan Roth won 2nd place with his blog This Is Why I’m Drunk a bit of a tongue-in-cheek name for his “unwavering curiosity toward beer.” Brian likes to ponder the art, history and culture of beer and he also likes data, weaving it into posts to back up his propositions. Strong writing that makes you think, often informs, and backs it up. What’s not to like?
Winning 3rd place is Jessica Miller’s Hey Brewtiful, A Woman’s View of Brewing and Beer. Like beer drinkers as a whole, women are a growing and underrepresented voice in the world of beer blogging, but that’s not why you should follow her. Follow her for the great photography, excellent graphics and varied writing blending beer, food, travel, and interviews with women in beer (figuratively speaking).
I took second place for Best Blog in last year’s inaugural competition and chose not to enter this year. It’s clear I’ll need to up my game if I have any hope of supplanting any of these folks in future competitions. Plus, they’re all a lot younger than me.
And that’s really the point of the contest according to the NAGBW, “to broaden the conversation about beer and brewing, raise the standards of writing, provide leadership and continuing education for practitioners of our profession, while also encouraging and supporting more participation throughout all media channels.”
Consider yourself broadened. You’ll find the complete list of winners at this link.
Just a little MT beer trivia, but I’ll point out that the first place winner for Best Beer Podcast this year went to Strange Brews (http://strangebrewspodcast.tumblr.com/), and one of the hosts on that show is none other than Tim Akimoff, former Missoula resident and founder of the (now defunct?) Grizzly Growler blog.
Nice tidbit and good to see Tim is still active in beer media. Grizzly Growler was excellent under Tim’s guidance, but I think we can safely say the site is dead now.