Farm Show Beer Competition – Best in Beer (2023) – Stats
The 107th Annual Pennsylvania Farm Show
Let’s get right into the gist of it. Firstly, what this is – the Pennsylvania Farm Show Beer Competition has been around since 2019. Meaning this is the fourth annual craft beer competition at the 107th annual convention.
The Pennsylvania Farm Show is a state wide agriculture, horticulture, farming, food, animal, and more expo at the Farm Show Arena and Complex in Harrisburg Pennsylvania. Annually held around the start of the new year (typically the second week of the year), and usually comes with a heavy dose of horrible weather and forcing the Harrisburg Heat to play on the road for that time frame.
Luckily, this year we have been spared the ugly weather, the Harrisburg Heat played on the road (in Florida… poor guys…) and we got our fourth annual craft beer competition.
Best in Beer – Results
Previously on (insert dramatic television sound effects as it cuts to the last few episodes) The Beer Thrillers I covered who won the Best in Beer competition at the 107th Annual / 2023 Farm Show. You can find the results here:
As I said in that article the following day I would do a statistics break down of the article. Unfortunately that got pushed back due to the real life tragedy that has befallen the Hemauer family (a fire has completely destroyed their home and property). So that took center stage and precedence. You can read about the tragedy and find links and ways to help them rebuild here:
Please, I fully encourage everyone who is able to – to help them out. At least look into the various ways in the article (GoFundMe, buying from different breweries, patronizing the Hemauer Brewing Company, etc.) to help and support this tremendous family.
But as you can see from the results page there was a lot of breweries named winners in different categories. So let’s take a quick hot second here to break it down.
Statistics
Let’s take a look by brewery and see how many 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places each of the winning breweries received.
| Brewery | 1st Place | 2nd Place | 3rd Place |
| Aldus Brewing Company | 1 | 2 | |
| LoveDraft Brewing Company | 1* | ||
| Warwick Farm Brewery | 1 | ||
| Logyard Brewing | 1 | 2 | 1 |
| Wolf Brewing Company | 1 | ||
| Pour Man’s Brewing Company | 1 | ||
| Wallenpaupack Brewing Company | 1 | 1 | |
| Bru Daddy Brewing Company | 1 | ||
| Lost Tavern Brewing | 1 | 1 | |
| Allusion Brewing Company | 2 | ||
| Forbes Trail Brewing | 1 | ||
| CoHops Brewing and Canning | 1 | 2 | |
| Big Bottom Brewing | 1 | ||
| Shy Bear Brewing | 1 | ||
| Spring House Brewing Company | 1 | ||
| McCall CoBeer | 1 | ||
| Bent Run Brewing | 1 | ||
| Levity Brewing | 1 | ||
| Our Town Brewery | 1 | ||
| Otto’s Brewery | 1 | 1 | |
| Dock Street Brewing Company | 1 | 2 | |
| Lavery Brewing | 1 | ||
| Rough Edges Brewing Company | 1 | ||
| Liquid Art Brewing | 1 | ||
| Conyngham Brewing Company | 2 | ||
| Saucony Creek Brewing | 1 | ||
| Boom City Brewing Company | 1 | ||
| Stoker’s Brewing | 1 | ||
| Isaac’s Craft Brewing and Kitchen | 1 | ||
| Locust Lane Brewing | 1 | ||
| Deer Creek Malthouse | 1 | ||
| Cartel Brewing and Blending | 1 | 1 | |
| Allegheny City Brewing Company | 1 | ||
| McCallister Brewing Company | 1 | 1 |
- * (asterisk) denotes “Best in Show” beer – Grim by LoveDraft’s Brewing Company
Let’s break it down now:
- Total number of breweries awarded – 34
- Total number of awards – 50 (plus a Best in Show – for a grand total of 51)
- Most 1st place awards – Allusion Brewing Company (2)
- Most 2nd place awards – Logyard Brewing and Dock Street Brewing Company (2)
- Most 3rd place awards – CoHops Brewery and Canning (2)
- Most awards total: Logyard Brewing Company (4)
- Second place most awards total: Aldus Brewing Company, CoHops Brewery and Canning, and Dock Street Brewing Company (3)
- On top of the 34 breweries that won – 18 other breweries submitted entries, for a total of 52 different breweries participating.
For the rules and the Farm Show’s list of winners, see the following PDF files:
Farm Show Craft Beer Competition
I think a new competition for next year should be eating the entire butter sculpture. Now that would be a competition! Move over Joey Chestnuts!
For information on the craft beer competition, you can see the list of rules in the PDF file (I’ll repost the rules here), but the general quick rules are:
General
Farm Show Documents: Department 34 – Entry Rules
1. This competition is open to any Pennsylvania Limited Brewery with a licensed professional brewer 21 years of age or older.
2. All entries must be made in Pennsylvania for commercial use.
3. A contestant may make up to six (6) entries.
4. An entry must consist of at least three (3) units (minimum of 12 oz. each) in a hermetically sealed vessel.
5. A product may only enter and compete in one department per year and must appropriately labeled in correspondence with the entry. Violation of this
rule will result in the product being disqualified from each department entered.
6. In order to be eligible to participate in the sampling and sales of beer at the 2023 Farm Show, a brewery must enter at least one (1) beer for judging.
There was / is a 35$ submission entry cost.
Judging
Farm Show Documents: Department 34 – Entry Rules
15. Judging will be private and completed prior to the opening of the Farm Show. All beer will be properly stored cold and chilled prior to judging.
16. Tasting format: All beer will be judged based on the Brewers Association 2022 Beer Style Guidelines with changes https://www.brewersassociation.org/resources/brewers-association-beer-style-guidelines/. Used with permission of the Brewers Association. The top three brews per category will be
awarded first, second, and third.
17. Following competition, brews will be displayed at the Farm Show. Best of Show Award will be presented.
18. PA Preferred™ Brews should be noted as such. These beers will be judged against respective class and the beer with the highest overall score will be
awarded the PA Preferred™ Legacy Award.
19. Placing will be offered on merit of excellence, not entry alone. Therefore, in any one class all placings may not be awarded if, in the judge’s opinion,
20. entries do not merit placement. This may also result in the omission of some placements such as first or second for awarding of only a third.
21. Decision of judges is final.
22. In the case that a brewer serves as a judge, that judge will not be permitted to judge the classes that they have entered. Furthermore, in the event that a
judge is a competing brewer and at least one of their entries is being judged for Best in Show, that judge will be recused from judging the class.
Categories
There was 15 categories in the competition, as well as PA Preferred category, as well as “Best in Show”, so sixteen total categories for awards with an overall award for “best in show”. Each category had three winning places (1st, 2nd, 3rd place), with occasional ties based on points awarded by the judges. In the cases of ties there could be two first places or two second places, or two third places, there would still be all three places awarded. (ie. one 1st place, two 2nd places, and one 3rd place.)
The categories were:
Farm Show Documents: Department 34 – Entry Rules
Classes
001 Light Lager and Ales (pilsner, helles, American lagers, kolschs, and cream ales etc.)
002 Amber Lager (oktoberfest, vienna, etc.)
003 Dark Lager (dunkel, schwarzbier, etc.)
004 Wheat Beer (hefeweizen, dunkelweiss, American wheat etc.)
005 Pale Ale (American and English Style)
006 IPA (<7.5% abv)
007 IPA (>7.5% abv)
008 Specialty IPA (anything that doesn’t fall into the above categories, including Red IPA, Rye IPA, Black IPA, etc.)
009 Stout (American/English styles)
010 Porter (American/English styles)
011 Belgian Style Beer (Saison, Witbier, Abbey Styles)
012 Kettle Sour
013 Mixed Fermentation Sour
014 Barrel Aged Beer
015 Fruit/Herb/Vegetable
For More Information on the Farm Show
- Farm Show Documents: Department 34 – Beer Awards
- Farm Show Documents: Department 34 – Entry Rules
- Farm Show Schedule
- Local 21 News: Getting ready for the 2023 PA Farm Show: What you need to know
- Farm Show . gov
For More of our Award Articles
Looking for more articles about breweries and brewers winning awards? Check these out:
- Best in Beer – Farm Show Awards (2023)
- 2022 NAGBW Awards
- 2021 NAGBW Awards
- 2020 NAGBW Awards
- 2022 Great American Beer Festival (GABF) Winners: Pennsylvania
- 2021 GABF Winners: Pennsylvania
- 2020 GABF Winners: Pennsylvania
- Allusion Brewing Company Wins Two Top Awards
- The Battle of the Breweries (2022) Winner Is…..
Thank You For Reading
Originally this article was going to come out the day after I posted the Best in Beer – Farm Show Awards (2023) article (on January 9th), but then the next day on the 10th – the Cox Brewing Company made the announcement of them leaving their current location (attached to the PizzATown in Elizabethtown) and going back to their roots and their old brewing location in Rheems – Cox Brewing Company Returning to Their Roots, so I covered that on the 10th. Then with the tragedy that struck the Hemauer family, and wanting to help and support them and give people access to the different ways to support and donate to this great family, yesterday I made the Helping the Hemauer Family article. So my apologies for this getting bumped back a few days.
The new year has been going strong already. We are just twelve days in and the blog is up to nine articles for the year. Not a ton of crazy stuff going on in my home front, Scarlet hit two months yesterday, and is doing well, Amy and I are back at work, and it feels like everything is at a frantic pace. The Bengals are in the playoffs and will be taking on the Ravens week one on Sunday night. Last year around this time we were starting to take some of our first beer trips of the year and planning on the big Cushwa 5th Anniversary Brewfest. Sadly their not doing a 6th anniversary one this year. Amy is a bit swamped with work (and being a first time mom) so hasn’t gotten to write yet this year, but she is chomping at the bit, constantly telling me articles and stuff she wants to write and work on, just not finding the time (and energy) yet. But she will soon, don’t worry.
We have been busy and there is still lots going on with the blog, despite our lack of travels yet. We got press credentials for the Craft Brewer’s Conference, so come May, we’ll be heading out to Nashville Tennessee to hang out for the week. We’ve recently done a podcast with the guys from Central PA Pour, we still stream often with Drew on Knights of Nostalgia, and been working with Josh at Mastermind X Studios on videos. So have no fear, there is still plenty of content in the pipelines.
So thank you all very much for reading, liking, subscribing, following, and commenting on our posts. Especially with the new year and maybe some of you going through “Dry January” (…why?!), and with our busy transition in life here (with Scarlet, etc). And thanks for the help as I work through the issues WordPress is currently having with the blog. Hopefully the new changes will be up shortly and the site will be looking even better than ever.
Until next time, thank you all and cheers everyone!
Cheers!
-B. Kline
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