One of my favorite parts of The Great American Beer Festival is the awards ceremony. After two days of drinking some of the best beer on the planet (day three of the festival starts right at the ceremony), there’s something special about getting in a room with all the brewers and seeing the enthusiasm behind winning an award for their hard work. Consequently, it’s also a great place to come up with a drinking list for the rest of the day and discover a brewery you might not have heard of before but should absolutely try.
This year’s GABF saw a total of 306 medal winners across all styles. That’s obviously way too many to list here (you can check them all out of the GABF website), and we’re a bit late on this one, but here are a few winners from some of the biggest categories:
American-Style Stout
Hooligan Stout – Old Schoolhouse Brewery – Withrop, WA
P2P – 10 Barrel Brewing Co. – Bend, OR
Black Cliffs – Boise Brewing – Boise, ID
American-Style Sour Ale
Kveik 1 – Shades of Pale Brewery – Park City, UT
Brevity – Brewery Silvaticus – Amesbury, MA
Wicked Shifty – Old Schoolhouse Brewery – Winthrop, WA
American-Style IPA
Bine – Root Down Brewing Co. – Phoenixville, PA
Not an IPA (P.S. It’s an IPA) – Appalachian Mountain Brewery – Portsmouth, NH
West Coast IPA is Dead! – Green Cheek Beer Co. – Orange, CA
Juicy or Hazy Imperial or Double IPA
New England Style Double IPA – Black Market Brewing Co. – Temecula, CA
Color of Life – Corridor Brewery & Provisions – Chicago, IL
Contains No Juice – Alvarado Street Brewery – Salinas, CA
American-Style Pale Ale
B. Right On Pale Ale – Ocean Beach Brewery – San Diego, CA
Neighborhood – Ventura Coast Brewing Co. – Ventura, CA
Charlatan – Maplewood BrewingCo. – Chicago, IL
Experimental Beer
Feral Brute – Firestone Walker Barrelworks – Buellton, CA
Terrior Pinot Noir – Alesong Brewing & Blending – Eugene, OR
Chips & Salsa Cream Ale – Cogstone Brewing Co. – Colorado Springs, CO
Gose
Two of Tarts – Upland Brewing Co. – Bloomington, IN
Salty by Nature – Root Down Brewing Co. – Phonesnixville, PA
Brewer’s Day Off – D9 Brewing Co. – Cornelius, NC