RateBeer Best Awards

for the year 2014 - award results

January 21, 2015

(Santa Rosa, CA) Millions and millions of times, and nearly a million times this year, RateBeer beer reviewers worldwide have raised a glass to review a new beer. We have tallied those scores and now present them as our RateBeer Best competition results.

But before we get to those, I'd like to raise a glass to the people who make the beer we drink. These men and women are the artists, engineers, visionaries, chefs, CEOs and of course janitors and many other roles combined that are today's craft brewer. I've had the pleasure of sharing a beer with many around the craft beer industry and there are no more passionate, skilled, brave and hard working people on the planet. The great success of craft beer around the world is further testament to this.

It's my great pleasure to honor them, and all those in the craft beer industry, with the results of this year's RateBeer Best.

Joe Tucker
RateBeer Executive Director

For our summaries, a particular emphasis was placed on tastings made in the last twelve months with best new brewer awards including Q4 2013. Additionally, brewpubs, bottle shops, restaurants and bars from around the world were awarded prizes. Cheers to all the winners and to everyone who keeps the world of craft beer growing as a fun, cooperative community devoted to artfulness and excellence.

EXPERIENCED REVIEWERS
RateBeer is now home to the most experienced beer critics in the world with SEVEN members with over 20,000 complete reviews, TWO HUNDRED SEVENTY-FIVE master beer tasters having over 4,000 full reviews. Additionally the world record holder for complete beer reviews, RateBeer's Jan Bolvig of VestJylland, Denmark has over 36,000 beer reviews to his credit. Furthermore, RateBeer is also home to countless Certified Cicerones, Beer Judge Certification Program graduates, GABF and GBBF judges.

TRULY WORLDWIDE
Despite the majority of reviewers and beers being American, the community is enriched by many of RateBeer's top 10 raters being from outside the United States with the top beers hailing from an increasing array of countries spanning the globe. The depth and breadth of RateBeer's beer database is truly unsurpassed and the competition the most comprehensive.

LARGE. VERY, EXTREMELY LARGE.
RateBeer Best was again the largest beer competition in the world ever -- more than 300,000 beers from over 18,500 brewers worldwide were tallied. Rating volume increased by a whopping 13% year to year. By comparison to the gigantic and amazing multi-day spectacle that is the Great American Beer Festival, RateBeer Best judged as many beers this year alone as would be evaluated at the Denver competition over the course of 52 YEARS (52 times the volume of this greatest year ever). We judged more than 21,000 beers in just our NEW BREWERS brewers category alone. That's more than THIRTY-TWO times the number of all beers by all brewers at the Great British Beer Festival.

REAL SAMPLES
Unlike other beer contests, the emphasis was largely placed on tasting commercial samples -- not special batches prepared for festivals. Additionally, most beers were not tasted in large flights, allowing a more reliable and accurate account of the beer.

NOT JUST ABOUT BIG BEER
While beer enthusiasts tend to enjoy more flavorful and stronger beers, they also taste and appreciate beer across the spectrum of all beers that are brewed. RateBeer Best recognizes this variety by offering many awards in a broad range of our own style categories.

Press contact: Joe Tucker, Executive Director, RateBeer, LLC. +1 (302) 476-2337.

Currently Available Lists
All lists of winners below released at midnight Central Time (UTC-6:00) on the dates indicated.