This is what it takes to win the title of Beer Drinker of the Year — and the free beer that comes with it

Shawna Cormier won Wynkoop Brewing’s Beer Drinker of the Year a year ago and acquired new superpowers.

“Beers just start magically appearing, and I don’t know what to do with myself,” jokes the 33-year-old bartenders and actress, who is the first woman to claim the title.

But in essence, that is what happens when you win the competition — you get free beer for life from Wynkoop, Denver’s oldest brewpub.

The power is bestowed on a laminated card. “It says, ‘Beer Drinker of the Year,’ and ‘Free beer for life,’ and there’s no stipulations on it. … I just wear it around my neck like a lanyard and I just tell strangers on the street,” she says with a laugh.

Wynkoop will crown a new champion Wednesday in a final round that challenges contestants’ beer knowledge, tasting senses and personality. Cormier, who moved from Denver to Seattle in December, will return to emcee the event, which draws beer fans from across the nation and takes place the week of the Great American Beer Festival.

Before she helps pick another champion, we talked to Cormier about what it took to win and what the title means.

“It’s kind of a great conversation piece because no one believes me at first,” she says. “They are like, ‘What do you mean? You are the self-appointed beer drinker of the year?’ I say, ‘No, I actually won a competition.’ It’s pretty hilarious. It’s fun. My parents are really proud.”

Mostly, she clarifies, they were happy it wasn’t a beer-chugging competition.

The contest starts with an online questionnaire that is designed to showcase creativity as much a beer knowledge. The finals take place live at the brewpub.

“It was kind of intense,” she recalls. “It was several different rounds, set up almost like a boxing match and different types of competition elements. There would be a time where the judges would ask us questions about beer, about brewing. … And then there were just moments of it that were just pure entertainment.”

The entertainment part involved her performing a special skill. Tapping her acting expertise, she played a mime timpani player performing the opening song to “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

“It ended up being really fun,” she says. “I think if you just let your inhibitions go away and you are knowledgeable about some stuff then you’re going to do fine.”

Her interest in beer started in New York, and her story is similar to many craft beer converts.

“I always liked beer, but I never really got into it,” she said. “I remember the first time I started trying Belgian beers, which I think is a common trajectory. I tried Ommegang Hennepin and I said, ‘What is this?’ Then I started becoming really fascinated by beer and I started homebrewing, which really kind of took me on an intense spiral. And then from there I started learning more and more.”

Given her work in the service industry, she took a serious turn and became a Certified Cicerone. “That really helped to solidify my obsession,” she says.

“I think the thing about beer is that once you starting learning about it, you learn how much you don’t know about it,” she adds.

Cormier says an early moment when she realized beer was becoming an obsession came “when I looked at my bookshelf, and was like, ‘Oh wow. I have like more beer books than I have any other books.’ I’m not reading plays any more. I’m reading about alpha acids and water chemistry.”

But don’t call her a beer snob. “I don’t see myself as ever being a snob, even if I’m being snobby,” she says. Instead, she prefers “beer geek,” or better yet a new term she coined with a laugh that she admits is a bit awkward: “An elevated beer person.”

Asked her favorite beers, she lists three: Other Half’s All Green Everything, a double India pale ale; Russian River’s Pliny the Younger, a triple IPA; and Crooked Stave’s Nightmare on Brett, a dark red sour. “Those are the first three that came to my head but there are so many others, it’s so hard,” she says.

Even with the crown — an actual hop crown in this case — Cormier said she was cautious about taking advantage of the free-beer-for-life prize at Wynkoop.

“I didn’t want to be that person who said, ‘I’m here for my free beer!’ and everyone that works there would say, ‘Oh great, she’s here again,‘” she says. So when she visited she decided to tip well and “be really nice and hopefully no one is going to hate me.”

Her final piece of advice to this year’s contestants: “Have a beer before the competition — it helps.”

[Read More …]