Tag: Great American Beer Festival

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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.

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GABF Medal Winning Brewery # 1 – Twin Sisters Brewing Company

When I saw that a strawberry zwickebier had won Gold at this year’s GABF, I knew I would have to look into it. It came from Bellingham, Washington and the Twin Sisters Brewing Company.

Let’s see what else I would order next time I am in Northern Washington State.

Pilsner from Now On – “A brilliant gold Pilsner made in the classic Czech style. Spicy and fruity noble hop aromas. Smooth body and a crisp finish.”

Chap ESB – “Our Brew Boys’ take on a traditional ESB (Extra Special Bitter). With light hoppiness, aromas of marmalade, and soft caramel flavors reminiscent of pie crust and toast, this English pub-beer is the perfect ale for quaffing on a rainy day.”

Shift Bier Dortmunder – “Brewed in the traditional style, this pale lager is recognized for its firm bitterness, soft malt character, and unique minerality stemming from the hard water characteristic of the region. It’s slightly more malt-forward and higher in alcohol than its non-export counterparts but retains all the drinkability of a lower gravity lager. Dortmunder Export Lagers were historically a beer brewed for 19th-century German industrial workers, who would quaff it after long shifts at work.”

Bellingham Green IPA – “ A classic American IPA with firm bitterness, notes of citrus, pine, and resin. Crisp, clean finish.”

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GABF Awards 2020 (no fist bump edition)

Brewnited at home, this year the Great American Beer Festival went virtual. But the awards carried on with 1700 competing breweries Here are my thoughts on the medals given….

First though, I have to say that busting through those categories so fast was dizzying. I admit that I liked the goofy intro and the videos sprinkled in between.

From the Los Angeles perspective, Beachwood remains king of this castle. Barrel-Aged Full Malted Jacket goes bronze, then Funk Yeah gold in the American Lambic category. But there are challengers. Claremont Craft Ales went yard twice once in the (new?) Experimental IPA category with Pepper & Peaches and then for Happy Days.

El Segundo got gold for Hammerland DIPA and then picked up bronze in the Strong Red category for Devil’s Path. They are strong in the strong categories.

Here are other winners from LA:

Ogopogo-Silver for Boeman Witbier

Three Weavers– Gold for Deep Roots ESB

Highland Park-Bronze for Sugar on My Tongue hazy

Firestone Walker Propagator-Gold for Wookey Jack