Tag: Great American Beer Festival

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GABF Medalist Brewery # 1 – Upp Liquids

First stop Bend, Oregon and the medal powerhouse on the brewdeck, Tonya Cornett. The new brewery is Upp Liquids and they won Brewery and Brewer of the Year in the 251-500 Barrels size category.

Upp was formerly Immersion Brewing earlier this year but have found a new path with cheeky social media posts and obviously great beer like…

Dollar Kitten Rice Lager – “A crisp, clean lager with a light body & whisper of sweetness that makes it deliciously easy to drink. Brewed for balance, it finishes dry with a touch of floral hop character.”

First Upp Hazy IPA – “A juicy, hazy IPA with tropical fruit flavors and soft bitterness from Eldorado, Strata, and Simcoe hops.”

Chasin’ Sunsets Yuzu Ginger Tart Ale – “Bright, tangy, and spicy sour ale with yuzu and ginger.”

Buzz Box Honey Tart Ale – “An ale blended with Ulmo, a rare Patagonian honey. Appreciate the complexity without the heaviness. This is a vibrant expression of place and craft.”

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8

from the Brewers Association

The 2025 Great American Beer Festival competition will have 8 new beer styles this year:

Light, Pale, Amber, & Dark Mexican-Style Lager

Czech-Style Amber Lager

Czech-Style Dark Lager

West Coast-Style Pilsener

Vera Hop Beer (one-time category)

There has been a mini explosion of Czech beers so that makes sense.  Breaking down Mexican lagers into four groupings seems carrying the point a little far to me.  I do like one time categories though.  I think that can be a fun way to promote a hop, malt or yeast.

If you want to familiarize yourself with all of the 2025 style categories, you can head HERE. 

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In the Tap Lines for October 2024

We have entered Q4 of 2024. As always, the year just swings by before you know it. Before the calendar switches, we need to pack in fun like a trip to Colorado, which I will be posting about later.

~ e-visits to (3) breweries that won at this year’s GABF

~ special featured reviews of Halloween inspired beers

~Heads-Up on Los Angeles Beer Events

~ Three suggested beers to buy this month. One light, one medium and one dark

~ A Book & A Beer reads The Book of Elsewhere by Keanu Reeves and China Miéville

~ A Podcast & A Beer listens to Blocks with Neal Brennan

~ Sports & A Beer returns with WNBA and NBA expansion to Portland and maybe Seattle

~ New Beer Releases and Best Beers of the Month

~ I will tap the Firkin and give my no holds barred opinion on the craft beer world.

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GABF 2023 – Quick Recap

Here are the centered around Los Angeles winners from today’s award ceremony in Denver….

Golds

Common Space Sonrisa – American style lager

Highland Park Hand of Josh – International Pale Ale

Claremont Craft Ales Triple IPA – Imperial IPA

Highland Park DDH Pillow – Imperial Hazy

Silvers

Angel City Apple Pomace Puncheon – Experimental beer

Beachwood Hoppa Emeritus – American black ale

Bronzes

HopSaint Random Acts of Greatness – other Strong Ale

Firestone Walker Propagator Extra Pale Ale – International Pale Ale

Beachwood Glenlongbeach – Scottish-style ale

Angel City Trois Annees Cuvee – Belgian Style sour

IPA Winners

WC IPA – Westbound & Down Westbound Select

Hazy IPA – 1852 Brew Co Away Days

Best Beer Name

Ain’t Afraid of No Goats my favorite beer name – bock of course

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Out Russelled

One of the best things about The Great American Beer Festival (GABF®) is their Paired food and beer section of the convention floor.  

But I got questions about this….

“This year’s festival will offer a sweet surprise on Thursday as sponsor Russell Stover Chocolates stops by on a nationwide tour celebrating its 100th anniversary and Guinness World Records title.”

It measures “30 feet 4.5 inches wide by 15 feet 5 inches tall and held more than 5,000 lbs. of chocolate. Russell Stover Chocolates will provide free chocolate samples to festivalgoers while supplies last.”

Maybe I am a See’s Man but even if I wasn’t one, I would avoid Russell Stover cause it don’t taste like chocolate and I sure don’t want a bigger piece of it.  I would prefer a local chocolatier instead.

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GABF Tomorrow!

Well, you caught me in two untruths there. One, GABF is in September. It is only the tickets that are on sale. And second, general sales start on the 12th as the insider sales get a one day jump on the action.

$95 will get you in to a session with the big blue bear.

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GABF Winners – 2022

Time to re-cap the Los Angeles and LA friends (aka California) winners at the 2022 Great American Beer Festival.

L.A. Gold

Ten Mile – Hooked on Onyx American Black Ale

Ogopogo Brewing Nix International Pale Ale

Highland Park Brewery DDH Pillow Juicy/Hazy Imperial IPA

Beachwood Full Malted Jacket Scotch Ale

L.A. Silver

Lincoln Beer Company Amber/Red Ale

Eureka Brewing Methuselah Imperial Stout

L.A. Bronze

Malibu Brewing Happy Days Honey Ale

Highland Park Brewery DDH Timbo India Pale Lager

Arrow Lodge Chanlaso Cream Ale

other winners include a brace each for Topa Topa, Riip Beer and Figueroa Mountain. Riip bagging Silver with Dankster Squad in the ultra competitive IPA category just ahead of North Park Beer and their Hop-Fu. Colorado’s Comrade Brewing won with More Dodge, Less Ram.

California took home 76 medals overall but Firestone Walker was shut out in the first time that I can remember but stalwarts like Stone, Russian River and Moonlight picked up medals.

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GABF 2021 Medal RoundUp

Friday saw this year’s Great American Beer Festival medals awarded. I have dug through all of the categories to present fun facts and kudos to breweries in California and in the other 49 states…

Let’s start this longer than my usual post off with the overall brewery winners in the order they were announced…

Short Fuse from Illinois, Cloudburst from Washington State, Sudwerk from California, Moontown Brewing in Indiana, Radiant Beer Co. from Anaheim, Metazoa Brewing from Indiana, Allagash from Maine and lastly Main and Sixth from Florida.

Now on to L.A. and adjacent medal winners. Highland Park Brewery won Silver for Fill Pils in the Kellerbier / Zwickelbier category. Figueroa Mountain had their name called four times for their Danish Red, Schwarz is the New Black, Meat Sweats and Davy Brown. Both Claremont Craft Ales and Arts District nabbed Bronze, the former in the Strong Red category and the latter in Special Berliner-Style.

The big winner was All Season Brewing who also secured Bronze through five rounds of judging in the second most entered category of American IPA. Third out of 404 entries is quite a feat.

Next up are my favorite beer names. Work Life Balance is great but the winner was Chris Barley in a Small Coat.

Other fun facts:

2,200 breweries participated so roughly a quarter of breweries overall.

Hazy IPA and American IPA both had over 400 entries but third was Fruited American Sour Ale and German Wheat Ale was fifth. Kolsch had 189 entries.

California swept the English / New Zealand category and had 60 medals overall.

Fresh Hop Ales were not judged because many are still in tanks. Those awards will be done next month.

The only category that didn’t award a prize was Scotch Ale, where no Gold was awarded.

GABF will return in 2022 from October 6-8.

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Another GABF Schedule Change

No Great American Beer Festival for the second year in a row. The return has now been marked for Fall 2022. This year will be a combination of the brewery passport that they used for last year along with the Craft Brewer Conference and Denver Beer Week aligning in September. The awards will go on too and will be broadcast just like last year as well.

Obviously this was the safest option. They may well have been able to hold the event considering the vaccine rollout is over 17% now but any setback between now and September would have led to concerns. Not to mention that any festival this year would probably have to temperature check everyone or check their vaccination cards. Not to mention – Part 2, that they would probably have to reduce the amount of attendees drastically.