California wins big at the 2024 Great American Beer Festival

Nearly 2,000 of America’s 10,000 breweries descended upon Denver, Colorado earlier this month for the nation’s biggest beer competition: the Great American Beer Festival. For the first time since the competition began in 1982, cidermakers were also part of the competition.

California continued its medal streak, bringing home 71 medals, compared with Colorado’s 40 and Oregon’s 38. Bay Area breweries brought home 14 of California’s total, with Morgan Territory Brewing alone accounting for three of those — a gold, silver and bronze.

The festival, which ran Oct. 10-12, involved 1,869 breweries from across the United States competing in 102 categories with the judges — including myself — sampling and ranking 8,836 beers. The new cider competition, which was sponsored by the American Cider Association, saw 233 hard ciders competing in five broad categories. Cider has been on such an upswing — there are about 800 cidermakers in the U.S. now — I suspect the competition will grow precipitously in the coming years.

Bay Area brewmaster Craig Cauwels, who has a Morgan Territory taproom in Pleasant Hill and a brewery in Tracy, won a gold for his Hoptomic in the popular Imperial IPA category. He also won a silver medal for Metalmark Märzen in the Vienna Lager category and a bronze medal for The Cushman in the Dortmunder or German-style Oktoberfest division.

Other gold medals won by Bay Area breweries include Santa Rosa’s Moonlight Brewing, which struck gold for the excellent Reality Czeck-style Pilsner in the Bohemian-style pilsner category. Also bringing home a gold medal was Olfactory Brewing for the Proverbial Fork in the Mixed-Culture Brett Beer category. The brewery has Berkeley and San Francisco locations.

San Leandro’s 21st Amendment’s El Sully won silver in the American Cream Ale category, as did Rohnert Park’s Old Caz Brewing in the highly contentious American-Style IPA category. Also winning silver medals: Half Moon Bay’s Hop Dogma Brewing for Venti is Large in the Coffee Stout or Porter category and San Francisco’s Standard Deviant Brewing for its Kolsch.

Bronze medal winners include Santa Rosa’s Russian River Brewing for its Intinction Petite Sirah in the Belgian-Style Sour Ale category. Berkeley’s Trumer Pils also won a bronze for its flagship beer. (I thought it deserved the gold.)

Oakland’s Ghost Town Brewing — which won Brewery of the Year in 2020 for breweries producing 5,001-15,000-barrels per year — won another silver this year for Nose Goblin in the Imperial IPA category. Emeryville’s Wondrous Brewing Co. nabbed a bronze for Wondrous Hell in the International Light Lager category.

And in the non-alcoholic beer category, Sausalito’s Best Day Brewing won a bronze for its Kolsch. Farther north, homebrewer Matt Hall and Auburn’s Crooked Lane Brewing, won a silver medal in the Pro-Am Competition for Hall’s homebrew recipe for a beer named Rising Run.