2013 U.S. Open Beer Championship Names Winners

Capital Brewery out of Middleton, Wisconsin, was named Grand National Champion, winning three gold, one silver and two bronze medals. Last year’s champion, Sweetwater Brewing out of Atlanta, took second, and one of the nation’s oldest breweries, Stevens Point Brewing in Stevens Point Wisconsin, took third.

Last year’s gold medal winners at the American Homebrewers Association  National Homebrew Competition were invited to compete, and homebrewers won a record 4 medals at the U.S. Open. Gautam Bagchi from Ohio won a silver medal for his Barky Pilsner while Kelsey McNair, Mark Girard and Andrew Mitchell took home bronze medals for their beers.

“This competition is significant because it accepts entries from breweries around the world and allows national, winning homebrews to compete,” said Dow Scoggins, director of the U.S. Open Beer Championships. “We’re excited that one of the oldest craft breweries in the United States won. Capital Brewery was founded in 1984, when only a handful of craft breweries existed in America. i. On the other hand, the oldest brewery in world, Weihenstephaner, founded in 1050, won Gold and Silver Medals in the German Wheat category.

This year, more than 20 international breweries from Canada, Belgium, Germany, Mexico, Columbia, Sweden, Finland and England medaled in the competition.

Other “winners” benefitting from The U.S. Open Beer Championship were the Norcross Fury Soccer Club and Collins Hill High School in the Atlanta area, which received hundreds hundreds of ice packs used to pack and deliver U.S. Open beer entries.

Sponsors of this year’s U.S. Open are The Beer Connoisseur magazine, a leading consumer educator of the beer industry, and BeerInfo.com, the leading craft brewery news website.

Top 10 Breweries 2013

The top 10 breweries based on the number of beers placing first (3 points), second (2 points) or third (1 points) are:

1. Capital Brewery – Middleton, Wisconsin

2. Sweetwater Brewing – Atlanta, Georgia

3. Stevens Point Brewing – Stevens Point, Wisconsin

4. Neustadt Springs Brewing – Neustadt, Ontario

5. Big Island Brewhaus – Waimea, Hawaii

6. Reuben’s Brews – Seattle, Washington

7. Nebraska Brewing – Papillion, Nebraska

8. Mother Earth Brewing – Kinston, North Carolina

9. Fullsteam Brewing – Durham, North Carolina

10.  Oskar Blues Brewery – Longmont, Colorado

1. Long, Dark Voyage to Uranus – Sawdust City

2. Brew Free! Or Die IPA – 21st Amendment

3. Rocky Mountain Oyster Stout – Wynkoop Brewing

4. The Abyss – Deschutes Brewery

5. Bitch’n Camaro – Sun King Brewing

6. Naked Pig Pale Ale – Back Forty Brewing

7. Triple Lindy – Big Bear Brewing

8. MassWhole Hefe Weizen – Wormtown Brewing

9. Hotter than Helles – Cigar City Brewing

10.  Octopus Ink – Pike Brewing

Honorable mention goes to by homebrewer Mark Girard of city, state. Two of the directors of the U.S. Open have Computer Science degrees.