Every year, StarChefs Culinary Magazine gives out awards celebrating Portland's rising star chefs. This year, they've decided to also include craft beverage makers. And wouldn't you know it, for the first time ever, there's a brewer category. Here are the nominees:
Alex Ganum of Upright Brewing
Alan Sprints of Hair of the Dog
Ben Love of Hopworks Urban Brewery
Bryan Keilty of Lompoc
Ron Gansberg of Cascade Brewery
The winner will be announced on December 5th at Portland's Nines Hotel. You can purchase tickets here for the award ceremony/tasting event.
Initial thoughts? My main issue is with the nomination of people vs. breweries. Why Gansberg when he's probably not brewing as much as others there, vs. Keilty who's doing an awful lot of brewing for the Lompoc organization but does not have the figurehead old-school status of a Fechter or Fleming? Why Love and not Ettinger, especially when Love is jumping ship? Alan Sprints has been cranking out some interesting new flavors, but they're mostly barrel variants on pre-existing beers. My money is on Gansberg, based solely on the variety of beers that Cascade has been cranking out (oh, and the Asimov thing). What do you think?
Hard to call that one without some insight into the criteria they will be using. Good choices for different reasons, but I think than Nick Arzner of Block 15 should have been on the list. I have been super impressed with his beers this year. Or is this a "Portland" thing?
ReplyDeleteOK Blogger boy. Who would you nominate?
ReplyDeleteI'd add a whole new category of complaint: few of these are rising stars--they're well-established brewers in the best beer city in the world. Gansberg and Sprints, really? They should be up for the Hall of Fame, not rising stars. Ganum would have been the ideal choice in 2009 or 2010, but now he's quite well-established. Ben's been brewing for years and is onto his third brewery. Bryan might be a good choice, but I'm not sure who brews what at Lompoc, so who's to say?
ReplyDeleteLet's say you can be a rising star for the first three years you've been brewing so Alex can stay in there. Who else should be on the list? Ben Edmunds, obviously. Mike Wright of Beetje/Commons. Ian McGuinness at Natian. Who else?
@PP-
ReplyDeleteAssuming this is Portland only..
@Josh & Jeff-
Ben and Mike for sure. Those are the two that immediately screamed "left out" to me. Jacob at Widmer? Jason at Burnside (ok, not rising, but doing something DIFFERENT). Many valid alternatives.