These Are the Winning Beers from the 2024 Great American Beer Festival

On Saturday, the Brewers Association (BA) announced the winners of the 2024 Great American Beer Festival. The annual event, held this year in Denver from October 10 to 12, celebrates small breweries across the U.S. as the country’s largest professional beer competition. Approximately 9,200 beers and ciders were submitted from across all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. This year, 285 judges evaluated brews across 102 beer categories and five new cider categories.

“The Great American Beer Festival continues its commitment to recognizing exceptional beverages from across the country in the 2024 competition,” Chris Williams, competition director for the BA, said in the release. “With the addition of five new cider categories, we’re pleased to recognize the best of the best in beer and beyond.”

Given the continued IPA craze, this year’s most-entered categories included Juicy or Hazy IPA, West Coast IPA, and American-Style IPA. The most-entered cider category was Fruited and Botanical Cider. At the end of the weekend, 326 medals were awarded to 273 breweries.

Apogee Brewing Company from Grover Beach, California was a big winner of the weekend, taking home four medals in the Specialty Saison, Belgian-Style Ale, Belgian-Style Strong Specialty Ale, and Belgian-Style Abbey Ale categories. Los Angeles brewery Highland Park also took home four medals for its American-Style India Pale Ale, Contemporary American-Style Lager, American-Style Pale Ale, and Juicy or Hazy Imperial India Pale Ale.

Here are the winners from the top five categories, the collaboration competition, and the pro-am competition. A full list can be found on the Great American Beer Festival’s website.

Juicy or Hazy IPA (349 entries)

Gold: Professional Human Being, Ambitious Ales, Long Beach, Calif.
Silver: Groundswell, Single Hill Brewing Co., Yakima, Wash.
Bronze: Crash of Rhinos, Movement Brewing Co., Rancho Cordova, Calif.

West Coast IPA (292 entries)

Gold: Codebreaker, Trademark Brewing Long Beach, Calif.
Silver: Pacific Portal, Alma Mader Brewing, Kansas City, Mo.
Bronze: IPA for Aliens, Masthead Brewing Co., Cleveland, Ohio

American-Style IPA (217 entries)

Gold: Competition, Highland Park Brewery, Los Angeles, Calif.
Silver: One Way, Old Caz Beer, Rohnert Park, Calif.
Bronze: Lexical Gap, Pollyanna Brewing Co., Lemont, Ill.

Dortmunder or German-Style Oktoberfest (210 entries)

Gold: Festbier, Glenwood Canyon Brewing Co., Glenwood Springs, Colo.
Silver: Festbier, Northwoods Brewing Co., Northwood, N.H.
Bronze: The Cushman, Morgan Territory Brewing, Tracy, Calif.

German-Style Maerzen (195 entries)

Gold: Pleasantbräu Oktoberfest, Soul Brewing Co., Pleasantville, N.Y.
Silver: Marchtoberfest, Galveston Island Brewing, Galveston, Texas
Bronze: Oktoberfest, Left Hand Brewing Co., Longmont, Colo.

Collaboration Competition (95 entries)

Gold: Twenty-Fold Sword, New Zealand-Style IPA, No Boat Brewing Company and Obelisk Beer Co., Snoqualmie, Wa.
Silver: Stupid Sticky Fingers, Wood & Barrel Aged Imperial Stout, Werk Force Brewing Co. and Rocky Reef Brewing Co., Plainfield, Ill.
Bronze: Spudweiser, American Pilsner, Live Oak Brewing Company and Hold Out Brewing, Del Valle, Texas

Pro-Am Competition (52 entries)

Gold: Piwo Grodziskie, Kansas City Bier Co. and Mike and Stephanie Butler, Kansas City, Mo.
Silver: Rising Run, Crooked Lane Brewing Co. and Matt Hall, Auburn, Calif.
Bronze: South of Helles, Starr Hill Beer Hall & Rooftop and Joel Miller, Richmond, Va.

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