I wish I was more diligent. Every year I think I am getting close to a prize for every winner but, again this year, the answer is no. Sadly. But the prizes are sweet. Look at what the winner of winners wins.
♦ Oxford Companion to Beer, Oxford University Press.
♦ A subscription to TAPS The Beer Magazine as well as 2 TAPS glasses, a CBA glass and a TAPS t-shirt.
♦ A subscription to All About Beer magazine - as well as a high likelihood of the photo being featured in an edition later in 2012.
♦ A beer mat from Shipyard Brewing of Portland, Maine.
♦ Adrian Tierney-Jones and CAMRA have offered two copies of Great British Pubs.
♦ Beer and Economics, Oxford University Press.
Wow. That's the el supremo winner's catch and I have to say I would love getting that. Each prize will be sent directly to the winner from the donor after winners in touch with the donors by email. It will take a little time and has to wait a bit yet as there are still TWENTY more to declare over the next few days. Bear with me as the judging begins.
And, OK, I am going to add one more. A prize from my own collection. The bad photo of the year award. I will come from me and it goes to a very special person, the person who I was happiest to see enter - Roshan Gopal Krishnan of Cochin, Kerala, India. Occasionally I award a prize for one just plain ugly photo - in 2009 it was awarded for a photo of a pile of dirt. I can't find it in the archives but that was just plain bad. No, there it is, submitted by Bill of Oregon in 2009. 
What a horrid thing. Roshan's photos are not of that dirt pile quality but - as he admitted, I will have you know - they are humble. Plus they break the rules. He sent nine... but who cares. He took a photo of food. Yik - but who cares. They are out of focus and they have absolutely no sense of anything. Yet... they come from Kerala, that land of magic. So, congratulations. Send me your address. Happy tropical Yule.
More results soon.
Comments
Alan - December 14, 2011 7:53 AM
21 actually. I have completely and thoughtlessly missed that Stan offered "Brew Like a Monk" to one lucky winner. What a moo I am.
Jeff Alworth - December 14, 2011 1:39 PM
If you hadn't awarded Roshan an award for something--bad photos, photos from the least likely country, photos from the country with the worst beer (I can confirm on personal experience that India's beers are almost all irredeemably bad), whatever--I would have protested mightily.
Of random note. Cochin is one of the most beautiful locations on the planet. India's southern tip is bisected by two states, and Kerala's the one on the west coast. It is a lush, tropical state with abundant, insanely tasty fruit. The people are relaxed and the pace is slow. Thanks to great government planning, the schools rock, and as a consequence there's a rich literary tradition in Malayalam. If this were my contest, I would have awarded Roshan a prize just because his entry reminded me of the wonderful time I had in his home state.
Alan - December 14, 2011 2:35 PM
Isn't that what I did without even knowing it? We should apply for adoption by the state of Kerala.
Jeff Alworth - December 14, 2011 9:33 PM
I've considered the ways in which my life would improve by moving there ... everything except the beer. The beer!
Roshan - December 22, 2011 1:08 AM
Dear Alan & Jeff - thanks for the kind words (and the insults :P ) and funny thing is when I sent it I didn't even realize that it was for the contest. I hadn't visited the site in ages and when I saw the pics, I thought hey why not send my own. Perhaps Alan could use one in a post on something! And then I read the posts and realized "Oh shit! it's a contest on photography & beer!"
Bad Photo category - I'll take it. Pics that I taken after a beer or two while sitting in a bar and on my humble old 2mp BBerry Curve - I am so proud!!
And Jeff great about the news of ur trip to Cochin. Next time you come here look me up. And guys yes, we have bad beer that is probably worse than what some hillbilly cooked up in his shack. Kingfisher is indeed king in India but we do also drink Foster's, Carlsberg & Tuborg - unfortunately all brewed in India itself!! A shame that the British were here for 400 years and they can't send us some imported Guinness or Fuller's as a thank you!!
Alan - December 22, 2011 7:23 AM
Listen, that all is proof that beer is only so important given how wonderful India is in so many ways. Your prize is well deserved if only to thank a faithful reader who looks out the window at palm trees and a tropical sea as I look out on a deep midwinter sorta like the famous one:
In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.