No worries Troy, the beer tasters blindly picked out what they liked, fair and square. It was my bad for insinuating anything else, intentionally or not.

You can have Wellwood back! We’ll see if Sundin manages to accomplish anything, the jury is still out on him.

Cheers,

Chris

No need to apologize..especially to a guy like me. I apologize to you if I came across as an a**hole. I’m a lighthearted guy myself and I don’t take to much seriously (just ask my fiance). I guess I was just trying to defend the judges who scored Mill Street’s beers, even if it was a joke.

My bad.

I hope your treating Sundin and Wellwood good over there!

Troy

As for my question: “Is Mill Street really Canada’s best brewery? Or are they Canada’s best brewery like the Leafs are Canada’s best hockey team (because they are from Toronto)?”

I apologize for insinuating that the Leafs are anywhere close to Canada’s best hockey team. I did not mean any disrespect to the rest of Canada, nor to the other five Canadian teams.

I’m sorry, I really thought my statement was far enough over the top to be clearly identified as a joke. I did not mean any disrespect to Mill Street Brewing and I apologize if I offended anyone. I really enjoyed their Tankhouse Ale and would love to try more of their brews.

Erik and I are pretty lighthearted guys who don’t take ourselves all that seriously. We mean no offense and are just having a good time with this blog.

Thanks,

Chris

Just finished reading your post and felt it necessary to inform you how Mill Street came to be named ‘Canadian Brewery of the Year’ two years in a row. Now, before I begin, it should be noted that I am not endorsing or promoting Mill Street in anyway,
I’m just going to explain the procedure for winning said award.

The Canadian Brewing Awards has grown significantly in the two years that I have been associated with them. We have had more and more breweries from all over Canada submit their various products, BC breweries included. Your question “Is Mill Street really Canada’s best brewery? Or are they Canada’s best brewery like the Leafs are Canada’s best hockey team (because they are from Toronto)?” is funny, yet inaccurate and somewhat disrespectful to the men and women who judged over 250 beers from across the country.

Like Greg mentioned, to gain the brewery of the year distinction, breweries must do well in each of the categories they enter. Mill Street bottles five beers, yet they have 13 beers in total (the rest are brewed and served at their brewpub). The breweries receive a list of categories before-hand and they determine which category the want to submit their beer for. The judges taste all the beer blindly, make their scores and then those scores are tallied up and the results get released. Mill Street one nine awards, including 5 golds. They beat other breweries in those categories, based on scores from the judges, as their beers most closely resembled the BJCP guidelines. Georgraphy has nothing to do with it. Other breweries submitted their entire line-up as well.

Last year Phillips came in second, Cameron’s brewery in Oakville, ON entered four beers this year and won 3 medals, and Pump House brewery in New Brunswick faired quite well this year with four medals for nine beers. Greg also touched on the low number of Quebec breweries involved; however, the same can’t be said for BC breweries. There were a lot (17 west of Ontario). There are breweries in Canada that don’t enter brewing awards, Dieu du Ciel is one of those breweries (owner confirmed this at an event earlier in the year; however, he did say that they may compete next year.

I’m not trying to take anything away from your experience with Mill Street, I just wanted to make you aware of how the brewery won the award. I hope this didn’t come across in a negative way

Cheers,
Troy

Since they’re based in Toronto where the judging takes place, it is presumably easier for Mill Street to submit all of their beers each year, while more distant breweries may only submit a couple of beers, if any at all. More beers = more chances to place in a category = higher odds of being “Brewery of the Year”.

(It should also be noted, though, that unlike some other beer awards, the CBAs require that a beer reach a minimum points threshold in the judging in order to receive a medal. So even if there are only three beers submitted for a particular style, they’re not all guaranteed to win a medal. Several categories last year had only two of the three medals awarded.)

While the complete list of submitted beers isn’t made public, I think that the absence of certain breweries from the winners list is evidence that they didn’t submit anything. I know from talking to the organizers that Quebec in particular is poorly represented, and coverage out west is a bit spotty as well.

Anyway, the bottom line is that the selection of “Brewery of the Year”, and any of the other CBA winners, is not influenced by geography, at least in terms of the judging of the awards. The tasting is completely blind, so it would be pretty much impossible for the judges to have a hometown bias. But due to the logistics of submitting beer to the awards, Ontario breweries are disproportionally represented. In order for that to change, breweries all across the country should be encouraged to submit their beer in the future.

I’d be especially happy if this happened because as one of the writers for TAPS (the organizers of the awards), I get to grab stuff from the stash of leftovers after the judging.