Great American Beer Festival Medal Winners in Denver
Over the weekend, the Brewers Association held its 30th Great American Beer Festival, bringing tens of thousands of craft beer lovers to Denver for a three-day tasting extravaganza. In addition to drinkers who came to have fun, a panel of professional beer judges came to the city and spent a week judging hundreds of entries in the annual beer competition.
When it was first held, in 1987, the competition had entries in just a dozen categories — this year there were 84, broken down further into 135 sub-genres. Winners were announced on Saturday morning, and there were plenty of local winners.
For breweries In town, Blue Moon's The Sandlot at Coors Field took Gold for Move Back in the Dortmunder or German-Style Oktoberfest category; Crooked Stave snagged Silver for Sentience in Wood- and Barrel-Aged Sour Beer; and Strange Brewing won a bronze for Dr. Strangelove under Barley Wine-Style Ale.
That’s not even counting the slew of awards taken home by breweries in Boulder and other nearby cities. In all, Colorado scored 35 individual medals this year. Check out a full list of this year’s winners (and past winners) here, and let us know, do you agree with the judges’ decisions? Who would you have picked to win?