When it comes crafting award-winning craft beer, the Niagara College Teaching Brewery has flexed its muscle once again with a new international medal win for strong ale.
The NC Teaching Brewery – home to the College’s Brewmaster and Brewery Operations Management program – was announced as a bronze medal winner at the U.S. Open Beer Championship on July 9 for its Beer 101 Strong Ale (Old Ale/ Strong Ale category).
The competition is the only one to include beers from professional breweries and award-winning home-brewers, with judges from the United States, Canada and England. The 2019 U.S. Open Beer Championship drew more than 7,000 beer entries representing more than 130 different styles.
“Winning a medal for one of our student-crafted beers at a major international competition like the U.S. Open is a testament to the quality of the applied education we offer our students at Niagara College,” said Steve Gill, general manager of NC’s Learning Enterprises. “Our Brewmaster students are equipped with the skills they need to succeed and lead the industry in the future, as well as hands-on experience with crafting quality products that are applauded as among the best in North America.”
“The fact that our student-brewed beers are continually doing so well is fantastic,” said Brewmaster professor Jon Downing – who led the opening of more than 100 breweries around the world before bringing his expertise to NC prior to the launch of its Brewmaster and Brewery Operations Management program in 2010. “Their talent and dedication to the craft, even as students, shows in the fact that they are brewing world-class beers, from ‘grain in’ to ‘cans out.'”
Dow Scoggins, director of the U.S. Open Beer, College and Cider Championship, noted the NC Teaching Brewery’s continued success at the U.S. Open.
“Over the years, Niagara College’s students have consistently medaled at this competition – a pretty amazing feat considering they are competing with some of the world’s best brewers,” said Scoggins.
A group of the College’s Brewmaster students also got a taste of what it’s like to judge an international beer competition – about 1,600 different tastes, in fact. Downing, who also serves as director of judging for the U.S. Open Beer Championship, led a group of about a dozen Brewmaster students to Oxford, Ohio from June 21-23 where they participated in the final session of judging which began in Atlanta two weeks earlier. The group from NC helped judge about 70 out of the 130 categories for the competition, which involved judging about 1,600 samples in a single weekend. The beers are judged ‘blind’ to ensure fairness and judges do not participate in judging their own beer entries.
“There’s nowhere else in the world they could possibly get this kind of experience,” noted Downing.
Scoggins applauded the College’s involvement in the competition.
“Today, the U.S. Open Beer Championship is the third largest beer competition in North America and, since 2014, Niagara College Teaching Brewery students have joined the U.S. Open brew crew. The NC students help serve, clean and judge beers,” said Scoggins. “If it was not for the students, the U.S. Open would have never grown as large as it is today.”
Third-semester Brewmaster student Elizabeth Beresford valued the opportunity to participate in judging for a major competition, and plans to include the experience she gained on her resumé.
“This was beyond anything I ever thought I would experience as a student,” she said. “We met a lot of different people from the industry from across the U.S., and we got to taste so many different kinds of beers that we otherwise wouldn’t have had the opportunity to taste.”
Beer 101 Strong is a British ale first brewed at the College as a version of the Teaching Brewery’s multiple-award-winning Christmas beer, Rudolph’s Red Nose Ale, which proved so popular it became one of the main Beer 101 offerings. The 7.5% Scottish ale’s medals include:
- U.S. Open Beer Championships – gold in 2018, bronze in 2017;
- Canadian Brewing Awards – bronze in 2019, silver in 2018;
- Ontario Brewing Awards – silver in 2018, gold in 2016, and gold in 2013); and
- Dublin Craft Beer Cup – silver in 2015 (for bottle version: Brewmaster Strong Ale).
Beer 101 Strong Ale is available for purchase at the Niagara College Teaching Brewery retail store (135 Taylor Rd., Niagara-on-the-Lake). Proceeds from sales support student learning.
For info on the U.S. Open visit usopenbeer.com
