Photo by Mike Laur © DG2C
Brock Wagner of Saint Arnold Brewing Company has a Good Day at GABF.
“The 2017 Great American Beer Festival Award for Mid-size Brewing Company and Mid-size Brewer of the Year goes to Saint Arnold Brewing Company of Houston Texas.”
Surprised and jubilant, the crew from Texas’ oldest craft brewery jumped to the head of the line and onstage, where both this year’s Bronze for German-Style Wheat Ale and the BOY trophy were presented in rapid succession. 4000-plus brewing brethren cheered, for good reason: not everybody wins 3 medals at GABF.
Brock let a little smile settle in. His hometown Houston had seen some rough times lately, but right now was not one of them. This was a win for both Saint Arnold’s beer and Saint Arnold’s beer drinkers. Brock had four good reasons to be happy as he left the stage, and for at least a moment all was well. He summed it up simply:
“This is fun.”
Photo by Mike Laur © DG2C
A packed house - overflowing into the hallways - eagerly awaits word whether their brews will be honored at the GABF 2017 Awards Ceremony.
Boulder-based Brewers Association has run GABF for 36 years, and for the past 31 years has conducted the world’s largest beer competition here in Colorado. From humble hotel-ballroom beginnings to this years’ half-a-million-square-foot venue, GABF is the Super Bowl, Academy Awards, and Nobel Prize of beer making, all rolled into one. Of course, 2017 was the biggest ever. 276 judges from 13 different countries sampled 7,923 beers from 2,217 breweries, and awarded 293 medals to 266 winning breweries. That’s a lotta beer. For brewers, winning at GABF is huge.
For beer drinkers, it’s beyond huge. GABF represents the largest collection of beer taps on Earth. Most attendees can't walk the entire hall in a four-hour session, let along drink a zillion beers. Had you the time and massively-sized liver to handle it all, however, you could have tasted 3,900, one ounce pours served by more than 800 breweries at this one festival. Figure to drink one pint per hour, 16 one-ounce pours every 60 minutes: that’s over 10 continuous days of non-stop beer tasting. Cheers!
Photo by Mike Laur © DG2C
These guys from Hailstorm Brewing in Illinois are not from Texas, but their Prairie Madness American IPA won Gold, beating out 407 other less-worthy entries. That is bad-ass in the beer world - Cheers, gents!
If you were lucky, you could have sampled one of the truly great award winners from an out-of-the-way brewery you never heard of. Such as Hailstorm Brewing Company of Tinley Park, Illinois. Their Prairie Madness American-Style IPA overcame the longest of odds, beating 407 other IPA’s to earn Gold in this year’s most competitive GABF category. Good stuff, so we heard --
Lone Star State Shines Bright.
20 Texas brewers won 28 medals and two Brewer of the Year awards at 2017 GABF. Saint Arnold Brewing, in its 23rd year of operations, won its 24th medal this year. That’s big. Austin Beer Garden Brewing Company was a big winner, too - two medals, and top honor as Large Brewpub and Brewmaster of the Year. They served both of their award-winners at the festival: Rocket 100 and Velvet Revolution.
Photo by Rick Mazzola © DG2C
Austin Beer Garden is honored as Large Brewpub of the Year, in addition to winning gold in the American-Style Pilsener and Bohemian-Style Pilsener categories.
Award-winners usually run out, so you had to act fast to find Freetail tapping La Muerta, Armadillo serving Honey Please, Saint Arnold pouring Pumkinator, or Oasis popping the last can of Luchesa Lager.
We urge you to go out and visit these award-winning brewers and sample their award-winning beers. We’ve included a few photos below, to help you identify the brewers and serve as an archive of what they look like before their heads get big. Do go find them, before the rest of the world finds them.
If you’re in luck, they’ll have their medal-winning beer on-tap and ready to enjoy. But even if they run out of Bearded Seal Stout, Pumpkinator, Honey Please, or heaven-forbid Buckle Bunny, there’s sure to be something to delight and enjoy. Use our new Beer Drinker’s Guide to Texas map to find your way, and you’ll never be lost for a beer again.
Photo by Rick Mazzola © DG2C
Freetail's aged beer "La Muerta" took the gold medal.
