The winners from this weekend's Great American Beer Festival have been announced. With over 75 categories, the list can be a tad overwhelming, but it still serves as a handy guide to finding great beers of every style, price point and availability.

A few personal thoughts:

• With 104 entries, the American-Style IPA category was the most hotly contested. Legendary brewery Russian River took second with their Blind Pig IPA, beat out by Firestone Walker's Union Jack IPA. Scoring two golds, a silver and a bronze, Firestone Walker appears to be the GABF's go-to brewer in the pale ale department. Unfortunately, if you don't live in California or Nevada you might have trouble finding one.
• In the least hotly contested department, check out Category 29: American-Style Specialty Lager. I seriously need to find out which 21 beers finished below Busch Ice. My condolences.
  
• Finally, congratulations to Pyramid Breweries for taking home the Mid-Size Brewer of the Year award. My travels up to the Pyramid Brewery in Berkeley, California sparked my love of microbrews at the tender age of... uh, ahem... 21. The gold medal winning Apricot Ale (out of 87 entries in the Fruit or Vegetable Beer category) will always hold a special place in my heart... and liver.

[Photo Credit: beertown.org]

On Wednesday, Charlie Papazian had a great post on Examiner.com providing advice on "surviving beer festivals." He would be one to know: He's the founder of the Great American Beer Festival.

Late September and early October are traditionally beer fest months, not least in part because of the granddaddy of them all, Oktoberfest. Some of Charlie's advice is self-explanatory, like rule #1: "Know your limits." But my favorite rule is #6: "Dump the beer."

Part of the fun of a beer festival is trying something new. Much of the time brewers are even trying to push products on us we might otherwise not try at all. Yet still people feel obligated to suck down suds they don't like. Part of knowing your limits is knowing when you're tossing back a brew just because it's in your cup. Don't do it! A "taster glass" is meant for just that: a taste. If you don't want the rest, dump it out. But be a respectful patron too and don't waste the breweries product for their sake and for the sake of your fellow fest-goers who might have a different opinion than you. If you're not sure you're going to enjoy something, make sure you only get a taste and consider going back for seconds later.

Check out the rest of the rules here and tell us if you have any beer festival plans for the fall in the comments. You can find me at the NY Brewfest next Friday.

So this year will mark the first annual Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival. Oh yeah. You'd be hard pressed to come up with a better tasting festival, at least in my opinion. I heartily applaud the creators of this one. PBR and bacon: what could be better

The Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival will be held in Des Moines, Iowa on March 1. Apparently this is National Pig Day, so the choice was obvious. A local pub, The High Life Lounge, will hold the honor of home base for the festival.

The big bacon event will draw people from all over the country and involve all kinds of bacony goodness. There will be $1 PBR, every kind of bacon containing food, and a bacon eating contest. The creator of the event, Brooks Reynolds, has donated smoked malts to local brewers so they can come up with smoky beers to go with bacon. And to top everything off, a chef from Chicago has created a maple bacon cheesecake with a Templeton Rye whiskey glaze. Yum.

My only question is "Can I Go?"

I'd like to wish our Canadian readers a very happy Thanksgiving! For those of you not in the know, our Canadian friends celebrate their bountiful harvest each year on the second Monday of October. Other than the date, they celebrate in much the same way that we do down here in the United States, with an abundant spread of food and the resultant post-dinner coma. Enjoy!

Photo link

Maine Fare- Celebrating the Bounty of Maine! Is a three day event held each year in the mid-coast area with tastings, book signings, cooking classes and demonstrations, great food and beverages of all kinds, and over thirty of the best chefs in the state getting together to show off the bounty of food in Maine. If you are a foodie, then this is the place to be the third weekend in September, Friday 9/14, Saturday 9/15, and Sunday 9/16/2007.

Originally this event started out as the 2005 Camden Food and Wine Festival but it grew so rapidly that the focus had to widen as well. Now Maine Fare is coordinated by Maine Festivals and Events, a nonprofit corporation dedicated to preserving, protecting, and sharing the cultural resources of Maine through a wide range of educational programs and special events.

Radishes are a nice, crunchy addition to salads, lending a peppery flavor and some color to whatever they're combined with. In Oaxaca, they take full advantage of the versatility of the vegetable by celebrating la Noche de Rabanos, or "the night of radishes," on December 23rd. The annual festival showcases the radish carvings, made from extremely large radishes (up to 10lbs). The carvings are often extremely elaborate, shaped as dancers, animals, village scenes and parts of folk stories, as well as religious images (like Nacimiento, the nativity scene).

The Radish festival began in the late 19th century when the mayor of Oaxaca "inaugurated the first exhibition of radish art." Now, tourists come in, "snapping pictures like radish paparazzi" and enjoying the carnival-like atmosphere. Cash and other prizes are given to the best pieces and lots of food and drinks (only some of which involve more radishes) are enjoyed.

Click here to see a flickr photo gallery of some of the really intricate radish entries from this year's festival.

[via neatorama]

By munching his way through 34 ears of sweet corn in only 12 minutes, Joe LaRue set the world record for corn eating over the weekend at the Sweet Corn Fiesta at the South Florida Fairgrounds. For his efforts, LaRue took home $1,500 grand prize. He and other competitors said that technique and speed were crucial in corn-eating, since the biggest obstacle eaters must overcome is jaw fatigue. LaRue's winning technique involved a side-to-side typewriter eating pattern, wrap around sunglasses to minimize distractions and a Rage Against the Machine CD to get him motivated. The event was officiated by the International Federation of Competitive Eating.

[Image of Joe LaRue from IFCE]

A dewberry is a relative of the blackberry that grows throughout the the country, particularly in New England and the South. They get their name from the fact that the berries are often seen covered in dew in the early mornings. Unlike other berries, the dark dewberries, which can be nearly black when ripe, reflect the color of the sky when they are covered with dew, making it noteworthy enough to generate the name. The New England berries are relatively common, but the Southern berries are less frequently seen because they grow only in the wild and are too fragile to ship. Actually, it would be more correct to say that they are rarely eaten and often seen, since they grown like weeds along fence lines and in vacant lots. The berries themselves are difficult to harvest. They grow on thorny vines, which for dense nests as though to protect the berries. Unfortunately for berry lovers, they taste good. Very good.

Going back generations, people in areas where dewberries grow, especially in Texas, have headed out to harvest them annually, just as their parents and grandparents did. They don’t do this to make a profit from selling the berries, though. They do it because nothing beats the smell of a fresh dewberry cobbler coming out of the oven. There is even a dewberry festival, which took place this past weekend in Cameron, Texas. If you can’t pick your own, the farmer’s market is a better place to look for them than the supermarket, but once you get some, try making a cobbler, or just serve with fresh, whipped cream.