Not to throw a turd in this punchbowl, but what good are these sort of awards?
<rant on>
I'm positive that somewhere out there, there is some awesome brewery in the middle of Podunk, WY or somewhere similar, that makes a much better version of a (pick your beer style here) than the one from (name some widely distributed high quality brewery here). Nobody heard of (PodunkBrau), so it gets the 1 vote from the one guy that lives in the farm down the street who actually tasted it. Yet, everybody and their brother heard of (PopularBrew), so it wins because people heard of it before. Nobody is disputing that (PopularBrew) is a good beer. The question is whether its the BEST as the contest title is claiming.
I guess I'm saying I just would rather see these beers actually compete head to head like at GABF, not in some unfounded popularity contest, and promoting these 'contests' is entertaining but doesn't help anyone but the already-big ones.
<rant off/>