The Alexandria, Virginia brewery took home gold at the Great American Beer Festival for Port City Porter in the Robust Porter category, and they weren’t done there, adding a bronze for Rauch Marzen in the Smoke Beer category.
It’s Virginia’s world, we just live in it.
No state east of the Mississippi won more medals than Virginia, with 13.
A Sweetwater property has medalled in eight of the last nine years. In 2024 Sweetwater – Centerville is back on top with another gold medal for Crazy Jackass Ale, Rye Beer category. It also won gold in 2021 and 2020, so it’s probably pretty pretty good.
Same as last year, Bluemont’s Bear Chase Brewing Co. won two medals, but it’s bittersweet as their former head brewer, Charles Noll, passed away from cancer over the summer. Buttons the Bear Oatmeal Stout moved up from bronze in 2023 to silver in the Oatmeal Stout category. Their Baltic Porter earned a bronze in the Strong Porter category. Dark beer season is approaching, so you know what to do.
Starr Hill’s Richmond brewpub took gold in the American Fruit Beer category for Hey, Girl, Hey, a beer-wine hybrid billed as a rose lager. Maybe it’ll make an appearance at Starr Hill Tyson’s.
DC was shut out for the first time since 2021, but it’s possible that Atlas was the only brewery in the District to submit beers for judging; this was the case last year.
Maryland was also shut out, but you have to be in it to win it, and we don’t know how many area breweries sent beer to be judged. No doubt COVID continues to add a bit more complexity to breweries’ plans, and even before 2020, many breweries declined to participate in the judging. Participating breweries shell out $180 (or $425 if not a member of the Brewers’ Association) to submit a beer. Good Beer Hunting Managing Editor Bryan Roth noted that, “Based on an analysis of IRI-tracked sales data, winning medals at GABF almost never translated to added or prolonged success for a brand. Instead, the most quantitative use for medal wins was more about brand awareness than anything else.”
Out of 326 medals, four states (California, Colorado, Oregon, Washington) won 176 of them, which is probably bad for the beer industry overall. No doubt the Pacific Northwest in particular is the epicenter of the American craft beer industry–that’s where the hops are, too–but the geographic discrepancy in medals reinforces the notion that GABF is a regional festival for breweries in the Mountain and Pacific time zones. This may feed into a self-fulfilling prophecy in that the far majority of East Coast breweries don’t want to participate. The Brewers’ Association doesn’t have to address this so long as the annual Denver pilgrimage is a money maker, but they probably should, given that entire swaths of the country don’t want to participate. The 2024 Great American Beer Festival saw 8,836 beers judged, but that’s down from 9,298 beers in 2023 and 9,904 in 2022. This year 1,869 breweries & cideries competed, but in 2023 it was 2,033 breweries and 2022 saw 2,154 breweries.
But speaking of Oregon, the DC Beer team got to celebrate Alesong Brewing & Blending’s Small Brewery of the Year win with founder and head brewer, Doug Coombs, at Snallygaster on Saturday. The joy was palpable and the award is well-deserved. As Jeff Alworth points out, “just 3.7% of the 8,836 beers entered managed to medal.” We at DC Beer extend our congratulations to all the winners, local and far-flung. You can find a complete list of 2024 winners at the GABF site. Cheers.
