Well, that was fun. The fourth annual 2009 Good Beer Blog Yuletide, Xmas, Kwanza, Hanukkah, Festivus and Hogmanay Photo Contest closed two hours ago and once I post these ten last entrant's selections, well, then I get to pick the winners. I am going to take a couple of days to review the photos, pick the winners and then announce them all at one time. As a preliminary observation, plenty of beer and snow. And little or no beer and a plate of food. Well done. On my count we have had 45 entrants who submitted a total of 185 photos. There was a drop in UK participants due to me not partnering with Jeffo of the Gunmakers. So we had 45 participants in 2009 compared to 70 beer pornographers in 2008. But the five picture rule made my life sane by reducing the total I had to save and post from the 524 I had to deal with last year. And sane is good.
On to the last wave of entries. First up, Stan Hieronymus of New Mexico, USA has sent in these five including one that immediately challenges the eye as to what beer is.
Next, Jared Kiraly of Cambridge, Mass. and a brewer with Harpoon sent in these photos from the inner sanctum of the brewery.
Troy Burtch of Toronto, Ontario and the blog Great Canadian Pubs and Beer as well as the prize giving TAPS magazine sent in these five:
Next, Kim Reed of that great beer city Rochester, NY sent in these five excellent shots including one of the best I have ever seen of a keg being tapped.
Moving right along, Holly J. M. Haliniewski of Germantown, Maryland sent in six pictures but explained she is "a long time reader (lurker) of your blog and after three years of watching the photo contest go by I decided to send in my 5 entries this time!" - meaning that there are counting issues. But as the photos cover trips to Germany, New Zealand as well as a holiday in Cambodia, well, what the heck:
Getting close to the wire, Mike Contasti-Isaac of Peterborough, Ontario got these entries in with 41 minutes to go before the contest closed:
Starting to push his luck, Robert Gale of Torfaen, Wales sent in these five solid entries with only 35 minutes to go. He also mentioned that he likes BrewDog and "and I've got a few bottles of their latest beer, Tactical Nuclear Penguin to try." A few bottles?!?! I think all of Canada only got a few bottles of this one. The last of the set is from an old pub in Newport, Wales that dates from 1530:
Finally, the last submission today came in with 18 minutes to go from John Kleinchester of Brooklyn, NY and, ominously for the rest of the participants, from the website beertography.com.
But we are not done as I missed two. These were sent in earlier but needed cleaning up. First, Ashok Argent-Katwala recently of London England but now of Toronto sent in these two portraits of a bottle of JackD'or by Pretty Things. I have a bottle of this in the stash and plan to pop it over the holidays:
Last and certainly not least, we have Robert Curran of generous prize giving Ontario's Creemore Springs Brewery who has forwarded five pictures by Gary Melenhorst the millwright and maintenance guy and John Stephenson the electrician and IT guy. They went on a tear through Germany this summer. They took in Klosterbrau Ettal, which is a Benedictine Kloster. Hofbrau Berchtesgadener. Berchtesgadener is located near to the Obersalzberg and the Eagles Nest. They did indeed find themselves at the top of the Eagles Nest. They also visited Schloss Linderhof, which was Ludwig's hunting lodge [not too shabby]. They managed a visit to Weihenstephan and Schneider Weiss, and Klosterbrau Weltenburg as well, too many other breweries to mention. Rob has gleaned these ten pictures out of a total of over 500 Gary and John took.
That is it! Let the ruminations begin. I don't even know how many prizes we have to give out but I don't have one for everyone.