Tonight, GoSpotCheck opened their doors to celebrate the beers and labels of Colorado Startup Brews 2019. Thank you to our awards sponsor, GoSpotCheck, our presenting sponsor, Salesforce, and all of the competing teams for making this event possible.
Top awards and engraved tap handles were presented to Evolve Vacation Networks, FieldGuideIT, LogRhythm, PromonTech, Wowza Media Systems, and Zoom.
Before you read more about the winners, we’d like to remind you that the People’s Choice event will be held tomorrow at McNichols Civic Center Building. Attendees can view all the labels, taste the beers, and vote for the People’s Choice Beer Award. There will be no registrations at the door. Register here!
Colorado Startup Brews 2019 Judges’ Choice Label Competition
Eighteen companies submitted 35 designs for the CSB 2019 Judges’ Choice Label Competition.
Thank you to our experienced panel of judges for volunteering their time and expertise. Matt Neren is the owner of Cultivator Advertising and Design, an agency focused on craft. “We help small brands grow and help large brands remain authentic.” Their clients include New Belgium Brewing, Great Divide Brewing, Inspirato, Tender Belly, and Moots. Josh Mishell is the owner of Fermentable Sugar, a full-service design and marketing agency. Fermentable Sugar clients include Atom Brewing, Dos Luces Brewery, Lone Tree Brewing Company, and Jim McKelvey. Chris Rippe is the owner of Rackhouse Pub and the former Marketing Manager of Flying Dog Brewery. The Rackhouse serves as the tasting room for Bierstadt Lagerhaus and shenanigans await in their beer hall.
The judges were impressed by the quality of designs and noted that this year’s panel was the most competitive year to date. A couple of judges were giddy when they first viewed the submissions.
“Die cut!”
“Front and back labels!”
“It’s going to be hard this year!”
“How did they print white on a clear label?”
“Can we award a technical achievement award?”
The Colorado Startup Brews 2019 Judges’ Choice Label Finalists include:
- Choozle’s You Are What You Wheat
- Conga’s Brut Force
- Evolve Vacation Rental’s Head in the Clouds
- FieldGuide IT’s Le Dònglé
- FieldGuide IT’s The Glamper
- GutCheck’s Agi-Ale AF
- Ping Identity’s Red Dawn
- PromonTech’s Anti-Pattern
- Well Data Labs’ Black Gold Imperial Stout
- Wowza Media Systems’ Citrus Got Real
The judges awarded Honorable Mention to Ping Identity for Red Dawn, a 12-oz submission. They noted that the smaller, 12oz format is more difficult to design.
In third place is FieldGuide IT for Le Dònglé. The judges described the design as clever, simple, artistic and relevant to the technology crowd.
Second place is PromonTech’s Anti-Pattern. The judges said that it was both graphically strong and playful. They appreciated the die cut on both the front and back labels.
The winner of the Colorado Startup Brews 2019 Judges’ Choice for Label Design is Evolve Vacation Rentals for Head in the Clouds. Evolve submitted this design on a can, which is very relevant in today’s market. In addition to the general design, the judges also liked the custom die cut for additional interest.
Second Place: PromonTech for Anti-Pattern
Third Place: FieldGuide IT for Le Dònglé
Honorable Mention: Ping Identity for Red Dawn
Colorado Startup Brews 2019 Judges’ Choice Beer Competition
On Saturday, September 7th, ten judges from the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP), scored and ranked the beers submitted for the Judges’ Choice Beer Competition. Twenty-eight (28) companies submitted fifty-three (53) beers for review.
For the first round, the beers were sorted into six groups:
- The biggest group was for the fifteen India Pale Ales (IPAs). That group included ten New England/hazy IPAs, three American IPAs, one brut IPA and one rye IPA.
- There were eight Belgians, which included one witbier, two Belgian pale ales, two saisons, two Belgian golden strongs, and one dubbel.
- There were eight traditional beers, including an American wheat, a Czech lager, a Marzen, two weissbiers, an American Pale Ale, and two American ambers.
- There were six beers in the stout and porter category: two porters, two stouts, and two imperial stouts.
- The fruit beer category is for any beer with fruit and can be in any base style. There were seven beers in this category, with IPA as the most common style. The most common fruit was peach!
- The last category was for the remaining nine beers and included five spice/vegetable beers, a Flanders red, a gose, and two mixed-fermentation sours.
Judges advanced to Best in Show those beers which placed in 1st or 2nd in the first round. Those beers were:
- AEI Cabinet’s Peach Explosion, a peach-flavored hazy IPA
- Choozle’s Old Gods Stout, an American stout
- LogRhythm DubbelRhythm, a Belgium dubbel
- Pax8’s Darker Web, a vanilla espresso milk stout
- PGi’s Dark Matter, an imperial stout
- Ping Identity’s Peachula, a fruited sour
- PromonTech’s Cloudy with a Chance of Tarballs, a New England IPA
- Randstad USA’s Belgian Golden Strong
- Well Data Labs’s Dinobyte Hefeweisen
- Wowza’s Citrus Got Real, a citrus pale ale
- Zoom’s Coeffient of Haze, a juicy hazy IPA
- Zoom’s Corriente, 1493, a horchata milk stout
A quick shout out to Choozle. They were the only team who submitted more than one beer and all of their beers were in the Top 3 of their respective flights. What a great first showing in Colorado Startup Brews!
A smaller panel of the most experienced BJCP judges chose the top three from the above twelve contenders.
In third place is Wowza’s Citrus Got Real, a citrus pale ale that judges described as, “tasty and refreshing, well-made and the hops present well with just enough malt to support” and “a very nice example of the style; overall a great beer. Excellent job!”
In second place is Zoom’s Coefficient of Haze, a juicy hazy IPA that judges scored a 44 of 50. Judges said it “drinks very easy with a refreshing juicy quality.”
The winner of the Colorado Startup Brews 2019 Judges’ Choice Beer Competition is LogRhythm’s DubbelRhythm, a Belgium dubbel. The judges said that the blending of flavors is really nice and it’s a “well-done beer that is largely true to style.”
Congratulations to all of our winners! We look forward to celebrating with all teams tomorrow night at the Colorado Startup Brews People’s Choice event. Good luck to everyone as you compete for the People’s Choice Award! If you have not yet registered, please do so tonight. There will be no registrations at the door on Friday.