Boo Koo IPA Wins Silver at World Beer Cup in Nashville

The world's most prestigious beer competition made its way to Nashville, TN this week. World Beer Cup® (WBC) is the preeminent beer competition that follows Craft Brewers Conference® (CBC) around the country - a brewers expo that pairs a massive trade show with beer education, events, and much more. Whereas CBC is held annually at various destinations around the country, WBC occurs just bi-annually, making even more impacted, and distinguished than its beer comp counterpart in Denver - Great American Beer Festival (GABF).

This year, at CBC, the competition was stiff. Here are some critical stats that put the competition in perspective:

10,213 Entries

2,376 Breweries from 51 countries

103 Categories

272 Judges from 26 countries

Numbers like that not only make it statistically unlikely to win, even IF you make the best beer in the world, but also all that much sweeter if you do manage to end up on the podium.

Boo Koo IPA has been the darling of our lineup ever since it was conceived. It's not only beloved by ownership and our employees, but it's a customer favorite as well, and has stood the test of time in a core lineup that has seen a considerable amount of change in the last decade. Its relatively restrained bitterness, mellow finish, and perfect balance of fruit, citrus, and resin notes, means it drinks somewhere between a West-coast IPA and a pale ale. In that regard it was years ahead of its time when it debuted almost a decade ago, favoring drinkability over aggression.

Photo credit: absolutebeer.com

Entering Boo Koo in the International Pale Ale category was key to making sure it was judged fairly, according to our Director of Brewing Ops, Chris Baker:

"Boo Koo is not designed to be a hardcore IPA which is what we'd be up against if we entered it in the American IPA category. It's a beer designed to be more approachable, with a relatively lower ABV and bitterness so we felt like it would be more appropriately judged in a category that exhibits more balance than more aggressive examples."

God-willing, Boo Koo IPA has another 10 years in it, and who knows...there may even be some spiffy new packaging coming before the end of the year. ;-) Just sayin.

A big shout out to our brewers and our entire production staff who works tirelessly to make sure every batch of Boo Koo produced tastes like the batch the judges had.

Want to taste greatness? Search for Boo Koo our Beer Finder at findmotherearthbrewing.com.