So here we are. The last post of the 2010 Good Beer Blog Yuletide Photo Contest and Marital Patience Examination. The entries have been swell and the prize givers have been even sweller - if that is possible. We have had photo entered from across North American and Europe and maybe a few points farther than that. We've had sixteen prize packages so far and are about to give out the last six. Plus, I did not write "shutterbug once" and we have all been the better off because of it.
The next four generally all equal runner up prizes before the announcement of Grand Loser and the Grand Winner are:
| Picture | Artist / Reasons | Prize |
|---|---|---|
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Peter B. Collins, brewer assistant at Grand River Brewing in Cambridge, Ontario for capturing the last day at the cottage | A hardcover first edition of Ambitious Brew direct from the author Maureen Ogle. |
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Gary Melenhorst the millwright and maintenance guy and John Stephenson the electrician and IT guy from Ontario's Creemore Springs Brewery because they can share it at the brewery and come up with a new wheat beer. | The upcoming brand spanking new book on wheat beers also direct from Stan Hieronymus. |
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Thomas Cizauskas of Yours for Good Fermentables because I want to be right there and I want to know that guy and be there with him... even if TOM CAN"T COUNT!!! | Swag from Creemore Springs including a hockey jersey |
 | Rob Symes of Toronto, Ontario because - even though that hand pump is unfortunately located - the image of a Japanese salaryman at Popeye's in Tokyo hitting the cask beer after an insanely long work day is both sad and appealing. | unsigned copy of Hops and Glory by Pete Brown from me |
Some great entries there with a heavy slant towards Ontario. My bias will not continue as next up is the 2009 Grand Loser as it is such a gloriously bad photo. The winner wrote:
There's a brewpub under construction in my neighborhood (Migration Brewing), and the do-it-yourself owners have a kegerator in their tunneled-out future pub, to make sure everyone is nourished enough to work. I hope I haven't moved the picture out of last place by putting it into context.
No worries about that. It is not only in last place but I made up a new award for it and bought the prize myself. Click on what we have below. It is a documentary moment. A dirt pile but an important one.
| Picture | Artist / Reasons | Prize |
|---|---|---|
 |
Bill Night of Portland Oregon and It's Pub Night because that is the ugliest picture I have ever posted on my blog. | Unsigned copy of Man walks into a Pub by Pete Brown from me. This is the ugliest cover of a very good book and so is a perfect match for the dirt pile portrait. |
So even though it is the Grand Loser, I hope that the prize is appreciated and received with the thanks with which it is given. Which leaves us the top beer photo submitted for 2009.
[Drumroll]
And the Grand Winner of A Good Beer Blog's 2009 Yuletide Photo Contest Is...
The champion photo every year has spoken to me about the vitality of beer. In the contest's first year of 2006, it was about beer in the state of nature as captured by Dave Selden of Portland Oregon. In 2007, the quiet of the pub was the subject of John Lewington's photo "Two Pints of Bitter" - a candid photo John took of two old boys enjoying their Sunday afternoon ale in a 17th century pub in Aldeburgh, Suffolk. Last year, it was about the labours of the brewer captured in the photo submitted by Matt Wiater of Portland Oregon of Chip Conlon at Roots Organic Brewing.
This year, the theme is the same - the moment of human interaction with beer - but the moment captured is a new one, the tapping of a cask. Like the other grand prize winners, there is something captured - the light, the moment, the people and the interaction that makes them all partners of a sort. Taken by Kim Reed of Rochester, New York, it shows the second we all wait for, we all day dream of as we play our roles as desk jockey, dairy farmer, coal miner, bank teller. It is the moment beer's work becomes beer's pleasures. For this seeing this moment and placing it an image Kim gets:
- a signed copy of Hops and Glory from Pete Brown, last week's winner of the UK Beer Writer of the Year 2009;
- a great Jubelale gift pack from Deschutes Brewing including a Jubelale ornament, Jubelale long-sleeve T-shirt, Jubelale pint glass and a Jubelale poster signed by the artist;
- a bottle of Yule Tide, the Christmas release tripel from Clipper City; and
- a year's subscription to All About Beer magazine.
Kim also sent in four other strong entries which you can see here. All good and all for the goodness of beer photography. Merry Christmas, happy holidays and have a great 2010.