Atwood Ales celebrates awards from the Washington Beer Awards and Seattle Magazine's Beer Awards.
image courtesy Atwood Ales
Press Release
Blaine, WA, June 22nd, 2018 – Over the weekend of June 16-17th, Atwood Ales Farm Brewery added several new feathers to its cap, bringing home two awards from the sixth annual Washington Beer Awards® as well as being named finalists for Washington’s Best Saison for the second year in a row by Seattle Magazine. This newest round of recognition for the small farmhouse brewery comes on the heels of wins at the New York International Beer Competition and the Good Food Awards earlier this year.
The results of the sixth annual Washington Beer Awards® were released Saturday, June 16th during the Washington Brewers Festival at Marymoor Park in Redmond, WA. This year, 117 Washington breweries received recognition of gold, silver, and bronze medals in 74 award category groupings. Atwood Ales Farm Brewery received a gold medal in the Herb and Spice Beer category for their beer, Mo’s Saison. Additionally, their beer, Triticale, received a special award for Best Washington Malt Beer, showcasing malts grown and produced strictly in Washington.
For Seattle Magazine’s second annual beer awards, the focus was on nine of the most common and most beloved styles of beer: pilsner, amber, saison, pale, stout, porter, and IPA, Double IPA and Northeast IPA. Only Washington-brewed beers that are regularly available were included on the list, and the winners were selected by a blind tasting panel composed of beer experts: bottle shop owners, bar owners, beer buyers, beer writers and beer judges. For the second year in a row, Mo’s Saison was selected as a finalist in the saison category, honored alongside the likes of Wander Brewing, Holy Mountain Brewing, Urban Family Brewing, and Cloudburst Brewing.
Mo’s Saison is one of Atwood’s year-round offerings, but rather than using the same recipe for every batch, they continually adjust the recipe based on the seasonally available herbs, fruit, vegetables and flowers they grow or forage on their farm and surrounding acreage. The Washington Beer Awards® gold medal winning batch of Mo’s Saison was brewed late last winter with the only fresh ingredients they could find on the farm at that time: sage and rosemary. “Of the seven or eight distinct variants of Mo’s Saison that we have produced over the past two years, the sage and rosemary variant is a family favorite of ours,” said Monica Smith, director of sales and marketing. The beer maintains classic saison yeast and malt character and utilizes the herbs as subtle enhancements to the aroma and flavor profiles.
Triticale is not only the name of Atwood’s Best Washington Malt award-winning beer, but also the name of a wheat-rye hybrid grain used in the recipe for the beer. Originally bred in Scotland and Germany in the 19th century, triticale combines the spicy flavor, durability and disease resistance of rye with the nutty flavor, yield and quality of wheat. All of the triticale, wheat and barley used by Atwood Ales Farm Brewery to brew Triticale was grown in the nearby Skagit Valley and malted by Skagit Valley Malting. In addition, all of the hops used in the brew were estate-grown and processed at Atwood Ales Farm Brewery, making this another “50-mile beer” in the Atwood portfolio. “We rely on Skagit Valley Malting for at least 85% of our malt needs in the brewery,” said head brewer, Josh Smith. “The malts they are producing are fantastic and it is wonderful to be able to showcase such a high quality, locally grown and produced malt the way that we were able to do with this beer: as 100% of the grist.” Triticale is a mixed culture saison, fermented with both saison yeast and Brettanomyces. “Brett” is a wild yeast that adds fruity, funky flavors and aromas to the beer, and also contributes to a very dry finish.
If you would like to taste any of these award winning beers, you are in luck. Atwood is primed to release Triticale at the Bellingham Farmers Market on June 30th and to wholesale accounts around the same time, as well. Mo’s Saison, in its sage and rosemary variant (and other variants), may be found at bottle shops, food co-ops, the Bellingham Farmers Market and other venues. “There are bottles of the sage and rosemary variant out there, but you might have to search,” said Monica Smith. “At this point, we do not plan to brew and release this particular variant again until next winter.” Atwood also offers free tours once a month, which can be another opportunity to taste and purchase their beers. Visit Atwood’s website for details and registration.
All photo credits to Monica Smith.
About Atwood Ales Farm Brewery
Atwood Ales Farm Brewery, Blaine’s first and oldest brewery, is located in a 100-year-old barn on a family-owned and operated farm, just 18 miles north of Bellingham. Opened in Spring of 2016, the farm grows ingredients for the on-site brewery, which produces a variety of ales inspired by French and Belgian farmhouse brewing traditions. While the brewery is closed to the general public, Atwood Ales’ bottle-conditioned beers are available every Saturday at the Bellingham Farmers Market, and in bottles and on draft at select locations around Puget Sound, from Vancouver, BC to Tacoma, WA. Learn more about Atwood Ales, find your nearest retailer, or sign up for one of their monthly tours, visit atwoodales.com.
About the Washington Beer Awards®
The Washington Beer Awards® are organized by Specialty Competitions LLC. The judging for the Washington Beer Awards® was held on June 2nd and 3rd at Elliott Bay Public House & Brewery in Lake City. The panels of trained judges had to evaluate 1,297 beers from 181 breweries spanning 131 unique styles from the Brewers Association Beer Style Guidelines for technical and stylistic excellence. This year 117 Washington breweries received recognition of gold, silver, and bronze medals in 74 award category groupings. The competition was held with the endorsement of the Washington Beer Commission as a way to celebrate Washington’s growing brewing culture and recognize excellence in the craft. All of Washington’s craft breweries were invited to submit entries to the competition held in a similar format to other craft beer competitions like the Great American Beer Festival® and World Beer Cup®.
The complete list of results can be found at www.wabeerawards.com/winners
About Seattle Magazine's Second Annual Beer Awards
The quest for the best beers started by asking a group of 40 local beer experts—bar owners, bottle shop owners, nationally accredited beer judges, beer writers and so on—to anonymously nominate three beers in each of nine different style categories: pilsner, amber, saison, pale ale, IPA, Imperial IPA, Northeast IPA, porter and stout. In each of the nine categories, the most highly nominated beers advanced to the finals. On March 5th, at the Beveridge Place Pub in West Seattle, a group of 10 beer experts assembled to taste all of the finalists. The judges scored the beers blindly, without knowing which beers they were drinking, based on criteria such as aroma, appearance, flavor and overall impression, with each beer earning a total possible score of 20 points from each judge. Those scores were tallied, and the highest-scoring beer in each category was selected as the champion. The nominees and winners are independent of whether they advertise with Seattle magazine or the Washington Beer Blog.
Complete results can be found in the July 2018 issue of Seattle Magazine or at www.seattlemag.com/eat-and-drink/seattle-magazines-second-annual-beer-awards
