More than 50 breweries in the Buffalo Niagara region are among those welcome to spend the next few weeks preparing beers to enter in the eighth annual New York State Craft Beer Competition, the largest state contest of its kind in the United States.
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The New York State Brewers Association, which leads the competition, will have entries in 31 categories from the 500-plus breweries statewide. If past is prologue, roughly 200 of them will pay the entry fee for more than 1,200 beers.
Two new craft beer categories, Cream Ale and Dark Lagers, will be part of the mix.
Hutch Kugeman – head brewer at the Brewery at the Culinary Institute of America and vice president with the Brewers Association – described cream ale as a style “with deep roots in New York State’s brewing history.”
The association will sponsor the state gold medal winner into the Great American Beer Festival tasting competition, a Denver-based event that takes place in the fall and is considered the premier such event in the nation.
Cream ales took root in the 1840s as corn became a growing staple in New York. Craft breweries have put varying twists on the style that exploded during the 20th century in Western New York because of Genesee Brewing Co. in Rochester.
Earlier this year, for instance, Buffalo Brewing Co. used a mason jar filled with clean snow from the Blizzard of ’22 in its recipe for Golden Snowbeer.
Last year, 189 breweries submitted 1,350 entries in the competition. A total of 90 medals were awarded in 29 categories after two days of judging in late February at the RIT Inn and Conference Center in Rochester.
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Winners will be announced in April during the association’s annual conference in Albany.
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