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Save The World Brewery in Texas took home gold and bronze medals for two of its hazy IPAs at the The… U.S. Open Beer Championship

The gold medal for best hazy IPA at The U.S. Open Beer Championship went to Chasing Broncos IPA from Save The World Brewery in Marble Falls, Texas. Save The World Brewery also tied for a bronze medal for the same category for Hunt For Hazy, another hazy IPA offering. The competition results were announced in early July by the Ohio-based competition that receives beer submissions from around the globe.

I’ve recently written about the best brewery award given by the competition, as well as the best pilsner, and the best IPA awards. However, I’m taking a closer look at the hazy IPA subcategory by itself because of their popularity. Hazy IPAs, aka New England IPAs, remain a dominant force in craft beer in the U.S. Critics may mock haze bros, but if the IPA remains king of craft beer then hazies are the king of kings. For evidence of this, just look at Sierra Nevada’s Hazy Little Thing, the first nationally available hazy IPA, it surpassed the brewery’s flagship pale ale in sales in 2022. Or just go to your local brewery and ask the brewer what their best seller is—in the vast majority of cases whatever it is will be a hazy juice bomb.

My personal feelings have gone back and forth on hazies. I loved the first hazy beers I tried coming out of Vermont and later Massachusetts, but then the style’s popularity led to copycat beers. Some of these were also great, but many were terrible. Over time I became burned out on the style—in some cases, quite literally, as when made poorly the unfiltered beers can give off a yeast burn flavor that’s as unpleasant as it sounds. Recently, however, I’ve fallen back in love with certain hazy IPAs. I recently wrote about one made in Connecticut that has become one of my favorite beers this summer.

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Of course, honoring quality beers is what a reputable beer festival is all about, and the U.S. Open Beer Championship is one of the best respected in the U.S. For the 2024 festival, judges blind taste-tested more than 9,000 beers across 170 styles submitted from a global slate of breweries. The Hazy IPA style saw more beers entered than any other category. In addition, to the gold medal winning Chasing Broncos IPA, three other beers medaled. Here’s a closer look at these award-winning hazy IPAs.

Save The World Brewing describes Chasing Broncos IPA as a “experimental juicy IPA exploring the world of tropical hops” designed to showcase “an array of southern hemisphere hops.” This refers to hops frequently found in places like Australia and New Zealand, which are often celebrated for their tropical aromatics.

The latest version of the brewery’s rotating hazy IPA Fogbringer 8 is made with Citra and Strata hops, among others, and then dry-hopped with large amounts of Citra hops. The process results in a beer that is described by the brewery as a “sweet and hoppy IPA that pushes citrus, stone fruit, and a bit of coconut.”

The two-way tie for the bronze medal in this category was split between Ohio and Texas. Seeing Colors Hazy IPA is made with El Dorado and Citra hops. Meanwhile, Hunt for Hazy is brewed to be smooth and juicy, per the brewery.

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YPSILANTI, MI – Thousands came from around the state Friday, July 26, to Riverside Park in Ypsilanti to try beers from dozens of local Michigan breweries at the 25th annual Michigan Summer Beer Festival.

Founders Brewing Marketing Manager Anthony Piccinini has been to the festival twice, but Founders Brewing is a long-time member and has been attending for 17 years.

“Happy to be supporting Michigan beer and Michigan Beer Fest,” Piccinini said. “Happy to give back to the people that are continuing to support us. I think people know our brands, we have some beers that you can’t go to the store and buy, we bring them out specifically for these festivals.”

RELATED: Visit Ypsilanti for ‘the largest Michigan-only beer festival in the state’

Several local bands played on the two stages on the festival grounds, Friday. There were also several food options.

“It’s more of the love we get back from the people than what we give to them,” Piccinini said.

“We are proud to be born and brewed in Michigan.”

See the Summer Beer Festival site for more information about the schedule of performers for Day 2 and the full list of breweries that attended the event weekend.

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The festival continues Saturday at 2 E. Cross St. in Ypsilanti from 1 to 6 p.m. Tickets are $65 at the gate, if still available, and include 15 sampling tokens.

The event includes 109 breweries with 685 unique beers in 83 different styles. Click here for the brewery list.

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JD Vance is making headlines for a variety of unanticipated reasons this week — accused of both making love to a literal couch and searching online for sex-specific dolphin content. And the hits keep coming.

Amidst rumblings that Donald Trump is perhaps regretting choosing Vance as his running mate — now that Biden has made way for a stronger match with whomever the presumptive Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, taps to join at her side in any upcoming debates — Vance’s background is being heavily researched, and much of it is being served up as easy “not this guy” fodder.

The latest in a string of derogatory Vance content is a resurfaced clip from a 2023 event, in which Trump’s #2 is shown referring to Jacob Chansley, AKA the Jan. 6  “QAnon Shaman,” as a “fun guy” who got a bad rap for his participation in the Capitol riot.

“This guy who was sentenced to four years in prison for literally walking around in the Capitol . . . We were taught it was a crazy guy with, like, the bullhorns, you know what I’m talking about? He looked like he’d be a fun guy to have a beer with, right? The Q shaman, that’s what they called this guy,” Vance says in the clip, which can be seen below.

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Chansley pleaded guilty to obstructing Congress during the insurrection and was ultimately sentenced to 41 months in prison. He was granted early release from federal prison in March 2023 and transferred to a halfway house in Arizona to serve until his release on May 25, 2023.

JD Vance weighs in on famous Jan 6 participant “The QAnon Shaman” in a 2023 speech:

“He looked like he’d be a fun guy to have a beer with,” should’ve gotten a lighter prison sentence. pic.twitter.com/fT8s183Vxx

— Will Sommer (@willsommer) July 26, 2024

July 25, 2024Chris Crowell

Beer is the vibe of summer 2024, confirmed. New Morning Consult research conducted on behalf of the Beer Institute shows that two-thirds of Americans (66%) opted for beer in the past three months, exceeding wine (54%), liquor (50%) and cocktails (43%).

“Summer in America wouldn’t be complete without a cold, crisp beer in hand, whether you’re enjoying the beach, firing up the grill, or cheering on your favorite team,” said Brian Crawford, president and CEO of the Beer Institute. “Beer is more than just a beverage—it’s woven into the fabric of our culture and brings Americans together. With 40% of beer sales happening between Memorial Day and Labor Day, we know beer is bringing family and friends together throughout the summer to enjoy beer responsibly.”

The poll was conducted online, June 11-12, 2024, among a sample of 2,087 adults aged 21 or older.

But what kind of beer? Here are some other insights from the Beer Institute polling on how Americans are enjoying beer this summer:

FYI: These beer drinkers also see the beer industry as a driving force in the American economy. Respondents report that the beer industry benefits the U.S. job market (79%), is supportive of American farmers and agriculture (65%) and is committed to responsible drinking initiatives (63%).

And, they are correct. The U.S. beer industry contributes more than $409 billion to our economy – equivalent to 1.6% of GDP. The beer industry pays more than $132 billion in wages and $63.8 billion in taxes. Nearly 2.4 million American jobs rely on a strong beer industry, including 92,159 brewer and beer importer jobs, 77,847 manufacturing jobs, 137,420 distribution jobs, 52,220 agricultural jobs and 979,805 retail jobs.

So, wherever and whenever you’re tipping back that crisp lager, you’re supporting America. Good job, everyone! USA! USA!

Benj Edwards

– Jul 24, 2024 10:12 pm UTC

In June, Runway debuted a new text-to-video synthesis model called Gen-3 Alpha. It converts written descriptions called “prompts” into HD video clips without sound. We’ve since had a chance to use it and wanted to share our results. Our tests show that careful prompting isn’t as important as matching concepts likely found in the training data, and that achieving amusing results likely requires many generations and selective cherry-picking.

An enduring theme of all generative AI models we’ve seen since 2022 is that they can be excellent at mixing concepts found in training data but are typically very poor at generalizing (applying learned “knowledge” to new situations the model has not explicitly been trained on). That means they can excel at stylistic and thematic novelty but struggle at fundamental structural novelty that goes beyond the training data.

What does all that mean? In the case of Runway Gen-3, lack of generalization means you might ask for a sailing ship in a swirling cup of coffee, and provided that Gen-3’s training data includes video examples of sailing ships and swirling coffee, that’s an “easy” novel combination for the model to make fairly convincingly. But if you ask for a cat drinking a can of beer (in a beer commercial), it will generally fail because there aren’t likely many videos of photorealistic cats drinking human beverages in the training data. Instead, the model will pull from what it has learned about videos of cats and videos of beer commercials and combine them. The result is a cat with human hands pounding back a brewsky.

During the Gen-3 Alpha testing phase, we signed up for Runway’s Standard plan, which provides 625 credits for $15 a month, plus some bonus free trial credits. Each generation costs 10 credits per one second of video, and we created 10-second videos for 100 credits a piece. So the quantity of generations we could make were limited.

We first tried a few standards from our image synthesis tests in the past, like cats drinking beer, barbarians with CRT TV sets, and queens of the universe. We also dipped into Ars Technica lore with the “moonshark,” our mascot. You’ll see all those results and more below.

We had so few credits that we couldn’t afford to rerun them and cherry-pick, so what you see for each prompt is exactly the single generation we received from Runway.

“A highly-intelligent person reading “Ars Technica” on their computer when the screen explodes”

“commercial for a new flaming cheeseburger from McDonald’s”

“The moonshark jumping out of a computer screen and attacking a person”

“A cat in a car drinking a can of beer, beer commercial”

Will Smith eating spaghetti triggered a filter, so we tried a black man eating spaghetti. (Watch until the end.)

“Robotic humanoid animals with vaudeville costumes roam the streets collecting protection money in tokens”

“A basketball player in a haunted passenger train car with a basketball court, and he is playing against a team of ghosts”

“A herd of one million cats running on a hillside, aerial view”

“Video game footage of a dynamic 1990s third-person 3D platform game starring an anthropomorphic shark boy”

A little less than a week after WWE legend Hulk Hogan tore his shirt off in honor of former President Donald Trump and earned a rousing chant of “U-S-A” at the Republican National Convention, he’s bringing his “Real American Beer” to Michigan.

Hogan, whose real name is Terry Bollea, launched the American-style light lager earlier this month and plans to appear in metro Detroit this week as part of the beer’s rollout.

“If the Great Lakes State is anything like what we experienced last week in Missouri, Michigan better get ready brother,” Hogan said in a news release announcing the plan.

Hogan is expected to make an appearance at all 11 events scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday, said Kameron Baetge, a public relations representative for Real American Beer.

The Wednesday stops, as released by the beer team, are at:

The Thursday stops are at:

The beer is 4.2% ABV and is described as having a light body and crisp, clean finish while using 100% North American ingredients.

The best pilsners of 2024 came in a variety of sub-categories.

The best pilsners in various sub-categories were announced by The U.S. Open Beer Championship in early July. The Ohio-based beer festival is one of the most prestigious in the world and along with the World Beer Cup and The Great American Beer Festival, is one of the big three beer festivals in the U.S.

This year judges tasted more than 9,000 beers across 170 styles submitted from breweries across the U.S. and globe. Though the competition gets the majority of its submissions from the U.S., it has also seen beers submitted from countries in Asia, Europe, Africa and elsewhere.

The competition was founded by brewer Dow Scoggins in 2009 and Scoggins recently told me the festival has always prided itself in the diversity of the categories it judges. You can see that when it comes to pilsners. The festival has five pilsner categories and a sixth category that can go either to a lager or pilsner (pilsners are a type of lager so although all pilsners are lagers, not all lagers are pilsners).

This year many major beer festivals have seen an uptick in pilsner submissions reflecting growing interest in the category from consumers. Many brewers I speak to have long preferred the subtle yet complex pilsner category to the more in-your-face IPA category which had come to dominate beer sales. In part because of this, these days pilsners are starting to take some market share from IPAs, though they are not yet as popular.

The pilsners below were all gold medal winners at this year’s U.S. Open Beer Championship, meaning they were deemed the best of the best by the festival’s panel of judges.

This popular Denver brewery with several locations is no stranger to success with several previous medals from prestigious beer competitions to its name. These include a 2024 bronze medal from the World Beer Cup for a beer called Smooth Exportations, a German-Style Oktoberfest. Here it took home the top prize in this competitive light and crisp lager category.

This brewery Czechs all the marks (get it?) for lovers of Czech/Bohemian pilsners with Czech Republic ingredients including the quintessential pilsner Saaz hop. Per the brewery, this beer has “a slight honey-like sweetness and toasted cracker flavor from the lightly kilned malt and a wonderfully spicy, herbal, and floral hop aroma.”

Only a true pill wouldn’t like this pils from Riverlands Brewing Co. that is made with German pilsner yeast and a mix of American Sterling hops and German Saphir hops. The brewery’s tasting notes say this beer features “a beautiful blend of floral, spice, lemongrass, and citrus hop flavors,” and “a pleasant bitterness.”

This gets the gold medal from me for best name on this list, which is all the more impressive because the brewery that released it, Taproom Beer Co., doesn’t exactly earn creativity points for its name. Getting back to this beer, it’s made with a new experimental hop called HRC-003 from the Hop Research Council and per the brewery “boasts [a] bouquet of tropical, stonefruit, and berry qualities.”

The latest award-winning brew from this critically acclaimed brewhouse and movie theater is named for the nickname given to the main character in the iconic Rocky franchise. Not only is this beer and many others from the San Antonio beer award-winning, I’m betting it pairs well with popcorn.

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In order to do so, please follow the posting rules in our site’s Terms of Service. We’ve summarized some of those key rules below. Simply put, keep it civil.

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The best pilsners of 2024 came in a variety of sub-categories.

The world’s best pilsners in various sub-categories were announced by The U.S. Open Beer Championship in early July. The Ohio-based beer festival is one of the most prestigious in the world, and along with the World Beer Cup and The Great American Beer Festival, it is one of the big three beer festivals in the U.S.

The competition was founded by brewer Dow Scoggins in 2009. Scoggins recently mentioned that the festival has always prided itself on the diversity of the categories it judges. This is evident in the pilsner categories. The festival has five pilsner categories and a sixth category that can go either to a lager or pilsner (pilsners are a type of lager so although all pilsners are lagers, not all lagers are pilsners).

This year, many major beer festivals have seen an uptick in pilsner submissions, reflecting growing interest in the category from consumers. Many brewers I have spoken to have long preferred the subtle yet complex pilsner category over the more in-your-face IPA category, which had come to dominate beer sales. Due to this preference, pilsners are starting to take some market share from IPAs, though they are not yet as popular.

The pilsners below were all gold medal winners at this year’s U.S. Open Beer Championship, meaning they were deemed the best of the best by the festival’s panel of judges.

This popular Denver brewery with several locations is no stranger to success, with several previous medals from prestigious beer competitions to its name. These include a 2024 bronze medal from the World Beer Cup for a beer called Smooth Exportations, a German-Style Oktoberfest. Here, it took home the top prize in this competitive light and crisp lager category.

This brewery Czechs all the marks (get it?) for lovers of Czech/Bohemian pilsners, with Czech Republic ingredients including the quintessential pilsner Saaz hop. Per the brewery, this beer has “a slight honey-like sweetness and toasted cracker flavor from the lightly kilned malt and a wonderfully spicy, herbal, and floral hop aroma.”

Only a true pill wouldn’t like this pils from Riverlands Brewing Co. that is made with German pilsner yeast and a mix of American Sterling hops and German Saphir hops. The brewery’s tasting notes say this beer features “a beautiful blend of floral, spice, lemongrass, and citrus hop flavors,” and “a pleasant bitterness.”

This gets the gold medal from me for best name on this list, which is all the more impressive because the brewery that released it, Taproom Beer Co., doesn’t exactly earn creativity points for its name. Getting back to this beer, it’s made with a new experimental hop called HRC-003 from the Hop Research Council and per the brewery “boasts [a] bouquet of tropical, stonefruit, and berry qualities.”

The latest award-winning brew from this critically acclaimed brewhouse and movie theater is named for the nickname given to the main character in the iconic Rocky franchise. Not only is this beer and many others from the San Antonio beer award-winning, I’m betting it pairs well with popcorn.

One Community. Many Voices. Create a free account to share your thoughts.

Our community is about connecting people through open and thoughtful conversations. We want our readers to share their views and exchange ideas and facts in a safe space.

In order to do so, please follow the posting rules in our site’s Terms of Service. We’ve summarized some of those key rules below. Simply put, keep it civil.

Your post will be rejected if we notice that it seems to contain:

User accounts will be blocked if we notice or believe that users are engaged in:

So, how can you be a power user?

Thanks for reading our community guidelines. Please read the full list of posting rules found in our site’s Terms of Service.

Luke Combs knows how to have a good time.

On Friday, July 19, the singer, known for his 2023 cover of “Fast Car,” invited Glen Powell and the “Twisters” stars onstage with him at MetLife Stadium to chug beer.

After the cast, including Daisy Edgar-Jones and Anthony Ramos, walked on stage, they were handed Miller Lite beer. On the count of three, they lifted their cans up for a group shotgun.

Once Powell and Combs were done, they threw the beer cans toward the country music star’s roaring audience.

Edgar-Jones seemed to struggle chugging the alcohol, so Powell offered an assist, downing the rest of her drink.

Powell shared a clip of the moment on his Instagram story and above it, added tornado and beer emoji.

Edgar-Jones added on her own story, “So this happened.”

Combs, the singer of “Beer Never Broke My Heart,” is known for his drink shotgunning skills. In May 2023, Ed Sheeran posted a video of Combs teaching the “Thinking Out Loud” singer how to shotgun, with step-by-step instructions on how to open the can and flip it up for the perfect chug.

Combs’ song “Ain’t No Love In Oklahoma” is featured on the soundtrack for “Twisters,” in addition to tunes from Jelly Roll, Miranda Lambert and more.

In the song, Combs sings, “I can’t breathe and I catch my breath/ But I keep chasing that same old devil/ Down the same old dead-end highway.”

In “Twisters,” Powell plays a rodeo star-turned-tornado chaser, who thrives on danger. In the film, he teams up with Kate (Edgar-Jones) and Javi (Ramos) to survive a sinister storm season in Oklahoma.

A few days before the film was released on July 19, Powell stopped by TODAY to talk about the movie, and he said he couldn’t wait for fans to see the film.

“I really love this one. I mean, maybe it’s because I feel really comfortable in a cowboy hat,” he said with a laugh during the July 17 interview. “Growing up in Texas — all my friends want to see this one, so it’s great.”

This article was originally published on TODAY.com

A recent trip to Capitol Reef National Park, a red-rock wonderland 215 miles south of Salt Lake City, amply demonstrated that much of Utah is bone dry. Still, brewers bristle when ignorant outsiders refer to Utah as a “dry” state.

“We are definitely underestimated,” said Jacquie King, head brewer at Ogden Brewing. “The Utah craft beer scene is alive and thriving.”

Nonetheless, King and her colleagues operate under some of the nation’s most restrictive alcohol laws.

In theory, the state’s 40-plus breweries can produce whatever they want, but boozier beers — anything boasting alcohol by volume in excess of 5 percent — are only found in bottles and cans. On tap, nothing can exceed that limit.

(Czech Your Head, the 6 percent pilsner reviewed here, was a canned beer which I ordered at a restaurant; it was served in a glass.)

Utah’s alcohol laws are as twisty as Capitol Reef’s Waterpocket Fold, a 100-mile-long geological formation visible from space. One example: wine, spirits, and higher-octane beers are sold in state-run stores, and are banned from supermarkets.

“It’s kind of a thorn in everybody’s side,” King said.

Yet these limits have encouraged a fair amount of cheeky humor — witness Wasatch Brewery’s Polygamy Porter with its tag line “Why just have one?” — and award-winning experimentation.

At this year’s World Beer Cup, an annual competition sometimes dubbed “the Olympics of beer,” Templin Family Brewing of Salt Lake City captured two gold medals, one for Guava Coconut, a field beer, and another for Squirrel, its entry in the “juicy or hazy strong pale ale” category.

Another Utah stalwart, St. George-based Silver Reef Brewing, took a World Beer Cup gold with its smoke beer, Mas Fuego, and a bronze with Smokin’ Barrel, in the “wood- and barrel-aged beer” category.

Moreover, Utah breweries may reap some benefit from the current trend toward lower-alcohol beverages. “Five percent and under,” King said, “is really a sweet spot.”

Sunday: Beer Fest, the Del Mar racetrack’s annual blend of ales and tails, is set for 1 to 5 p.m. in the track’s Seaside Cabana. Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, 2260 Jimmy Durante Blvd., Del Mar. dmtc.com/calendar/detail/beer

Aug. 2-4: I mentioned this in my last column, but it’s worth repeating: My Yard Live will host a three-day fest for its fifth anniversary. Expect food, beer, corn hole and live music — dueling pianos, Aug. 2; Band Over Board’s yacht rock, Aug. 3; and Cash’d Out, the Johnny Cash tribute band, Aug. 4. My Yard Live, 288 Rancheros Drive, San Marcos. Reservations, free but required: myyardlive.com/reservations.

Aug. 10: HessFest XIV, celebrating Mike Hess Brewing’s 14th anniversary, will feature live music — I’m especially pumped to hear The Walrus, a Beatles tribute band from New Orleans — food, beer — I’m especially pumped to try MHB’s cold IPA, Chill Factor — craft root beer, hop water and free bottled water. All proceeds will benefit Oncology and Kids (OAK), a San Diego nonprofit that serves children with cancer. Imperial Beach Pier Plaza, 940 Seacoast Drive, Imperial Beach. Tickets, $30-$80, can be purchased at mikehessbrewing.com.

Given the overwhelming number of choices, where do you direct out-of-towners eager to explore San Diego’s craft beer scene?

Gary Stoller, Forbes magazine’s beer correspondent, recently asked me that question with one key caveat: look beyond breweries that already enjoy a national following (Stone, say, or Ballast Point). My answers can be found online: rb.gy/bihes2.

Your choices may differ — heck, mine might differ by the time this appears in print. But if you want to engage in this great San Diego beer debate, send your picks to peterrowesd@gmail.com.

Beer: Look Up!
From: Level Crossing Brewing, Salt Lake City
ABV (Alcohol By Volume): 5 percent
Style: Amber Ale
Drink or dump: Drink. Not too light and not too dark, this Goldilocks of an ale showcases sweet caramel malts. Also just right: the piney and herbal hop character which lift the beer off the palate in the finish.

EVO
From: Wasatch Brewery, Salt Lake City
ABV: 5 percent
Style: Amber Ale
Drink or dump: Drink. Exceptionally quaffable brew, its toasted malts supplying notes of toffee and roasted walnuts. Willamette and Super Galina hops add a refreshingly bitter snap.

Czech Your HeadFrom: Proper Brewing, Salt Lake CityABV: 6 percentStyle: PilsnerDrink or dump: Dump. Proper’s website insists this beer leans into a bracing hop bitterness, but I found it surprisingly – and disappointingly – sweet.