Microdat attend Craft Brewers Conference in the US

Microdat MD, Steve Midgley, attended the Craft Beer Conference in San Francisco, USA and comes home with a challenge.

Steve arrived in San Francisco on the 23rd to attend the events opening reception held at the California Academy of Science and met with several UK suppliers and brewers who were attending the event. He also meet with the two representatives from Leeds based Vertical Drinks who import American craft beers to the UK ie Sierra Nevada and Dog Fish Head. They introduced Steve to several American craft brewers and directed him to the many local (Californian) brewers who were dispensing UK style American produced beers at the reception.

The beers being offered were all American craft beers with various styles such as UK, Belgium, German but usually highly Americanised by increasing the alcoholic strength (ABV) and the amount of hops to produce very bitter (very high IBU’s bitterness units) and highly flavoured beers often not really representing there supposed origins. The lowest strength beer at the reception was a 4.9% ABV beer from Anchor Steam Brewing the main beers were between 6 to 10% and went as high as 14.5%. After several samples of the beers it was felt that whilst they called them UK ales such as IPA’s Scottish Ales etc. they were really American beers, very loosely in the style of UK ales. 

We ended the reception with several US brewers, discussing the option of a beer challenge for the next event and it was generally felt that it was a great idea.

The conference was busy and interesting and at the farewell reception held on the Saturday evening the small British contingent all agreed that cask ales had arrived in the USA. We also agreed that we should develop a US UK beer challenge ie 6 to 10 beer styles to be compared next year at the reception.

We need a name for the challenge ie like the Rider Cup in golf, Davis Cup, Ashes etc.

Perhaps it should be the Real Ale Challenge Cup?