Great Beers Awarded Great Honors at the 2016 Great American Beer Festival®
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MyBeer Buzz
From the GABF:
Result UPDATE:
GABF originally announced Karl Strauss Brewing Co. – San Diego as the Mid-Size Brewpub of the Year and Fat Head’s Brewery & Saloon as the Mid-Size Brewing Company of the Year.
There is an update to those results:
Mid-Size Brewpub of the Year
Boxing Bear Brewing Co., Albuquerque, NM
Justin Hamilton and Dylan Davis
Mid-Size Brewing Company of the Year
Karl Strauss Brewing Co. – San Diego, San Diego, CA
Team Karl
The Brewers Association issued the following statement regarding the change:
“During competition registration, Karl Strauss Brewing Co. self-identified their San Diego location as a Mid-Size Brewpub. After the award ceremony, GABF competition staff realized that this was inaccurate: this location is, in fact, a Mid-Size Brewing Company. Karl Strauss, while it operates brewpubs, is classified as a production facility by GABF competition guidelines.
After reassigning Karl Strauss to the Mid-Size Brewing Company category, and recalculating the Brewery of the Year results, it resulted that Karl Strauss was the winner of the Mid-Size Brewing Company of the Year category. In addition, Boxing Bear Brewing Co. is the resulting winner of the Mid-Size Brewpub of the Year category.
All of us with the Great American Beer Festival and the Brewers Association deeply regret this error. Fat Head’s Brewery & Saloon, which had originally been identified as the Mid-Size Brewing Company of the Year, had a very strong performance in the competition, winning a gold medal in the German-Style Wheat Ale category, a silver medal in Other Strong Beer, and a bronze medal in Fresh or Wet Hop Ale. They were among the top medal-winning breweries in the 2016 competition.
Congratulations to all of the winners in the most-entered Great American Beer Festival competition ever.”
Boulder, CO • October 8, 2016—In its 30th year, the 2016 Great American Beer Festival (GABF) competition awarded 286 medals to some of the best commercial breweries in the United States, plus three GABF Pro-Am medals to teams of amateur homebrewers paired with professionals. Presented by the Brewers Association, GABF is the largest commercial beer competition in the world and a symbol of brewing excellence.
View the 2016 winners or download a PDF list of the winners.
Overview: Great American Beer Festival Competition
In a ceremony at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, prestigious gold, silver and bronze medals were awarded to winning breweries in 96 beer categories covering 161 different beer styles (including all subcategories), establishing the best examples of each style in the country. Neither a gold nor a silver medal were awarded in the Pumpkin/Squash Beer category.
Winners were chosen from 7,227 competition entries (nearly 9 percent more than the 6,647 entries in 2015 and surpassing all previous participation records) from 1,752 breweries hailing from 50 states plus Washington, D.C.
The competition also saw its biggest-ever panel of judges, with 264 beer experts from 12 countries, including the U.S., and 170 competition volunteers. The panel also evaluated 88 Pro-Am entries, which were judged in three rounds over four days.
2016 Brewery and Brewer of the Year Awards
Very Small Brewing Company and Very Small Brewing Company Brewer of the Year
Sponsored by Brewers Supply Group (BSG)
Brown Truck Brewery, High Point, N.C.
Team Brown Truck
Small Brewing Company and Small Brewing Company Brewer of the Year
Sponsored by O-I
Überbrew, Billings, Mont.
Über Cru
Mid-Size Brewing Company and Mid-Size Brewing Company Brewer of the Year
Sponsored by MicroStar Logistics
Fat Head’s Brewery & Saloon, North Olmsted, Ohio
Matt Cole and Mike Zoscak
Large Brewing Company and Large Brewing Company Brewer of the Year
Sponsored by Beer Institute
Pabst Brewing Co., Los Angeles, Calif.
Gregory Deuhs
Small Brewpub and Small Brewpub Brewer of the Year
Sponsored by Briess Malt & Ingredients Co.
ZwanzigZ Brewing, Columbus, Ind.
Mike Rybinski and Trent Fleener
Mid-Size Brewpub of the Year
Sponsored by Brewers Supply Group (BSG)
Karl Strauss Brewing Co. – San Diego, San Diego, Calif.
Team Karl
Large Brewpub and Large Brewpub Brewer of the Year
Sponsored by Country Malt Group
The Austin Beer Garden Brewing Co., Austin, Texas
Amos Swifty Kim
Overall Competition Highlights
· Most medals won:
· Four (4) medals were won by Überbrew, Billings, Mont. (2 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze)
· Three (3) medals were won by each of the following breweries:
o Karl Strauss Brewing Co. – San Diego, San Diego, Calif. (2 golds, 1 bronze)
o Brown Truck Brewery, High Point, N.C. (1 gold, 2 silver)
o Fat Head’s Brewery & Saloon, North Olmsted, Ohio (1 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze)
· Top three states by ratio of medals to entries by state:
· Wyoming (.111) with 45 entries and 5 medals
· Hawaii (.107) with 28 entries and 3 medals
· Virginia (.07) with 200 entries and 14 medals
· First-time GABF competition entrants (self-identified during the registration process) numbered 464. Of those first-time entering breweries, 41 won medals.
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