Charlie Papazian, author of The Complete Joy of Homebrewing, founder of the Great American Beer Festival, the American Homebrewers Association and the Brewers Association, is again conducting a “BeerCity USA” poll on the Examiner. The voting opened yesterday and will last through 11:59 p.m. Mountain Time on Sunday, May 13. Vote once, and only once!
Asheville, North Carolina is a three-time winner and will be buoyed by the fact that both Sierra Nevada and New Belgium plan to open new breweries in the East Coast city. San Diego came in second place in 2011, and “made an early go of it last year but could not sustain the effort to the end,” according to Papazian. He also noted that Grand Rapids, Michigan won far more nominating votes than San Diego in this year’s poll. However, Papazian acknowledged that “San Diego continues to grow by leaps and bounds as a craft brewing and craft beer powercity.”
This growth isn’t just a recent phenomenon, and there’s even a full-length feature documentary called Suds County USA coming out in the next few months that covers the twenty-five years of brewing history in San Diego County; see the new interview clip called CRAFT, released yesterday, at this link. That historical context, combined with the fact that San Diego was chosen as the site for the 2012 Craft Brewers Conference and World Beer Cup, means we are deserving candidates for the title this year.