Canada Beer Cup 2024: BC Craft Breweries Show Their Stuff
What’s Brewing is pleased to present this insider’s look at Canada’s biggest craft brewing competition, provided courtesy of Canada Beer Cup judge Noëlle Phillips. In addition to serving on the judging panel, Noëlle was present at the awards gala held directly after the BC Craft Brewers Conference on October 18th, 2024 at New Westminster BC’s Anvil Centre.
“And the winner of the 2024 Canada Beer Cup is….Quark, Strangeness, and Charm Witbier from Pile O’Bones Brewing in Regina!”
The hush in the Canada Beer Cup Gala auditorium was broken not by the owners of Pile O’Bones, but by the folks from Deadfall Brewing Company, winners of last year’s Canada Beer Cup. There was no sadness here about the Cup leaving our province. With raucous cheers, jumping up and down, Deadfall’s owners rushed into the aisle to embrace the new Canada Beer Cup honorees. The longtime friendship between these two breweries made the passing of the Cup from BC to Saskatchewan a truly special moment (even if BC craft beer fans may have hoped for another win).
It was also a potent reminder of how so much of Canada’s craft beer industry in general is founded upon care, mutual respect, and friendship. “Giving this award to our best friends…it’s just the best feeling!” Erin Baerwald, co-owner of Deadfall, told this author with a teary smile. If BC couldn’t take home the Cup, this wouldn’t prevent them from being thrilled for their Saskatchewan colleagues.
BC wasn’t left out of the Gala’s biggest award, however. Burnaby’s Dageraad Brewing won a spot as a Cup runner-up with its Tous les Jours mixed-culture session ale, together with Line 12 Lager from Quayle’s Brewery in Ontario.
Selecting just three beers out of over 1500 for this honour was challenging. The final round of judging to determine the Canada Beer Cup winner and its runner-ups took place after the competition’s 30 judges spent 3 days tasting hundreds of beers from over 250 breweries across the country.
With careful protocols in place for blind tasting, no judge knew what brewery any beer came from. The quality of the beer and its alignment with style guidelines directed our scoring as we worked for hours in pairs or small groups to assess our flights. And for the first time, the five-person Best in Show judging panel was comprised entirely of women – a memorable and exciting moment in an industry that is still largely dominated by men. I was honoured to be included in this panel and I must say that if the Best in Show judging itself was difficult, deciding on the final single winner was even more so. These were all beautiful beers that embodied the best of their style categories. If you get a chance to try any of them, don’t hesitate.
Of course, all of last night’s medal winners are beers you should try. There were 166 medals – actually, they were full-sized crowns – given out, in addition to the Packaging Awards. Of these 166, BC craft breweries took home 65: 18 golds, 24 silvers, and 23 bronzes. Deadfall, the 2023 Canada Beer Cup winner, was a heavy-hitter and may need some extra vehicle space to transport their 5 crowns back to Prince George. They took home a silver in the Brown British Ale category for its Dark Mild, bronzes in North American Brown Ale, Session Hazy, and Dark Belgian Strong Ale, and gold in the Hazy Pale Ale/NEIPA category for its Succession NEIPA.
Tin Whistle Brewing in Penticton, one of the province’s longest-running breweries, won two bronzes for its Real Good Light Beer and its Peach Cream Ale, and a silver in the Experimental category for its Cherry Blossom Sake Lager. The bronze in that category went to another BC brewery – Ucluelet Brewing’s Sugar Shack Canadian Maple Lager.
In a beer competition, lager categories are often large and can be difficult to stand out in. However, BC breweries are pulling their weight here. Mount Begbie Brewing won a bronze in Standard American Lager for its Revelstoke Lager and a gold in Dark Lager for Revelstoke Dark Lager, while PoCo Brothers received the silver in that category. In International Pale Lager, a category with plenty of entrants and firm style expectations (you can’t hide behind anything in a pale lager!) silver was awarded to Barnside Brewing and bronze to Gladstone Brewing. Rewind Brewing in Port Moody snagged a silver in Czech Pale Lager for its Tape Deck Czech Pilsner, and Red Truck in Vancouver took home the gold in Hoppy Lagers for its La Strada Italian Pilsner.
The darker beer categories also had plenty of BC winners. Brassneck Brewery won gold in Brown British Ales for its Old Money, as well as gold in Specialty Fruit Beers. Gold in the Strong Dark European Lagers category went to a BC classic: the Hermannator Ice Bock by Vancouver Island Brewing. Bronze in that category went to Mile Zero Brewing for its porter. Slackwater Brewing won gold in the North American Amber Ales category for its Idleback Amber, and yet another BC gold was won in the Dark Belgian Strong category for Dog Mountain’s Friar Belgian Quad. In Imperial Stouts, Hornby Island Brewing took home the gold and Longwood Brewery was awarded bronze, while Camp Beer Co. received a silver in North American Stouts and Whitetooth Brewing received the same in UK Stouts and Porters.
All in all, BC breweries took home almost 40% of last night’s awards, an impressive ratio considering this competition is nationwide. They also won 6 out of the 12 packaging award medals.
Check out this year’s winners here: canadabeercup.com/2024-results
More About The Author
Noëlle Phillips is the author of Brewmasters & Brewery Creek: A History of Craft Beer in Vancouver, Then and Now, as well as Craft Beer Culture and Modern Medievalism and co-editor of the collection Beer and Brewing in Medieval Culture and Contemporary Medievalisms. She is a regular contributor to The Growler and the BC Ale Trail blog. She teaches in the English Department at Douglas College.