The Best in BC Craft Beer – 2018 People’s Choice Awards

December 4, 2018

Links to previous years’ results below. See also our 2018 industry analysis:

BC Beer Consumer Demographics, Preferences & Opinions – 2018 BC Craft Beer Survey Results

2018 BC Craft Beer Trends – 6 Years of Consumer Data Visualized

2018 BC Craft Beer Survey Results: 6th Annual People’s Choice Awards

During November 2018, more than 1200 of you voted for your favourite beers, breweries, events and more in the 6th Annual BC Craft Beer Survey. Since 2013, the survey has provided insights about the state of craft beer in BC, including the preferences, opinions and demographics of you, the BC craft beer fan. You’ve made your opinions known, and we’ve been listening.

All participants were free to vote for absolutely any beer, brewery or event they wished. That makes more work for us when tabulating the data! But with hundreds of different potential winners in every category, the results speak for themselves. Plus, if you’re one of the people that geeks out on this stuff, you can compare our freeform voting results with those of other, “curated” polls. You can see the significant overlap between the options provided by craft beer writers and those chosen freely by the craft-beer-buying public.

Congratulations to all the winners and thank you to everyone that took part in this year’s BC Craft Beer Survey! We’ve combed through our data to find out what BC beer consumers think is #1. Now, without further ado, we present the 2018 Beer Me BC People’s Choice Awards!

Best BC Craft Brewery

Phillips Brewery
Field House Brewing
Brassneck Brewing
Four Winds Brewing
Yellow Dog Brewing

Veteran Phillips Brewing, BC’s largest craft brewer, still pulls down the votes from BC’s beer-loving public. But comparatively small Field House–who are showing up on a lot of lists these days–and absolutely tiny Brassneck are right there with them. Kudos to Yellow Dog and (naturally) Four Winds as well.

**Best New BC Craft Brewery**

Beere Brewing (2017)
Electric Bicycle Brewing
Île Sauvage Brewing
Taylight Brewing
Northpaw Brewing

North Vancouver’s Beere Brewing technically opened their doors in late 2017, but due to popular demand they top this year’s list of rookies. Much-heralded Electric Bicycle takes top honours for those with a 2018 debut.

Best BC Craft Beer

Driftwood Fat Tug IPA
Hoyne Dark Matter
Backcountry Widowmaker IPA
Superflux Colour & Shape IPA
Red Racer IPA

Once again a stalwart wins. But check out the votes for relative upstarts Backcountry (their IPA also showing up on other lists) and Superflux. Notice that four out of five are IPAs?

Most Often Consumed BC Craft Beer

Driftwood Fat Tug IPA
Red Racer IPA
Steamworks Flagship IPA
Hoyne Dark Matter
Phillips Blue Buck

Respondents were asked not only which beer they like best, but which one they drink most often. Why does this category matter? If you own one of the above breweries, or any other brewery in BC that wants to sell beer, it obviously matters. Plus, it’s interesting to observe how products like Blue Buck show up on this list, as opposed to the “Best” list above.

It’s also interesting to see that there is one dark beer that keeps coming up in BC craft drinkers’ awareness. In addition, note that despite the high profile of trendy hazy IPAs in recent years, there’s just one Northeast-style IPA on the list (it’s the one that kicked open the door for hazy & juicy IPAs in BC a couple of years ago).

There is clearly going to be overlap between the concepts of “best” and “most frequent”. But people don’t constantly buy and drink the most cutting-edge beers at all times; the market really belongs to everyday beers.

Best Spring/Summer Seasonal BC Craft Beer

Red Racer Session IPA (ISA)
Bomber Brewing Park Life
Parallel 49 Tricycle Radler
Fuggles & Warlock Gin & Lime Pilsner
Stanley Park Sunsetter

Central City popularized the ISA in BC, and it’s a monster seller for them. But this category, thanks to our freeform format, shows remarkable diversity.

Best Fall/Winter Seasonal BC Craft Beer

Granville Island Lions Winter Ale
Driftwood Sartori Harvest Fresh Hop IPA
Vancouver Island Brewing Hermannator Ice Bock
Whistler Brewing Chestnut Ale
Driftwood Singularity Imperial Stout

Here again the survey’s open-ended nature mixes fall and winter beers. Some of BC’s most venerable brewers and longest-lasting seasonal beers show up on this list.

Best Packaging Design

Driftwood
Parallel 49
Phillips
Superflux
Four Winds

The award-winning Driftwood series by Hired Guns Creative is quick on the draw and wins yet another label design shootout, as it has with other lists.

Best BC Craft Beer Event

Great Canadian Beer Festival
Vancouver Craft Beer Week
Farmhouse Fest
Okanagan Fest of Ale
BC Beer Awards

After 26 years, GCBF is beloved by BC beer fans. But much younger Farmhouse Fest has been a strong contender since its debut in 2015.

What’s Next?

We don’t just print out a list of winners. During December, we’ll be releasing a more in-depth analysis of our findings. Stay tuned for our next article about BC Beer Consumer Demographics, Preferences & Opinions. Also, we’ve got something nobody else can provide: “Six Years of Consumer Data Visualized”.

In the meantime, we’ve gathered the past years’ results, going all the way back to 2013, for your browsing pleasure. Scroll down to compare what won this year with what people liked half a decade ago.

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Thank you to everyone that participated. Thanks also to all of the sponsors that provided prizing, including Vancouver Brewery Tours, R&B, Field House, Beer League, Howe Sound, Trading Post, Three Ranges, Dead Frog, Red Racer, Andina and Strange Fellows.. We could not do it without you!