The Brewers Association (BA) awarded 347 medals to 273 breweries and cideries Saturday during the trade group’s Great American Beer Festival (GABF) in Denver.
“Year after year, the Great American Beer Festival sets the bar for American brewing (and for the second year in a row, cidermaking),” BA competition director Chris Williams said. “The 2025 competition was no exception.
“There were extremely strong showings from numerous breweries and cidermakers across the U.S., maximizing the level of competition among the entire competition community.”
A total of 8,315 beers and ciders were evaluated for the competition by 250 judges, submitted by breweries from all 50 states. Producers were able to submit their beers to 108 styles categories, including Vera Hop Beer, added for the first time this year.
There were also six cider categories, as well as a pro-am competition – celebrating collaborative beers between home brewers and professional breweries – and collaboration competition between professional breweries.
The inaugural Vera Hop Beer gold medal was awarded to Offset Bier Co.’s Gooding Farms (Park City, Utah), beating out 61 other entries. The silver medal went to Russian River Brewing’s RnD West Coast Pils #7 (Windsor, California), while HopSaint Brewing (Torrance, California) took bronze with Nothing to Fear.
Additionally, the BA gave out nine brewery of the year awards based on brewery size, with the winners determined by the number of medals won in this year’s competition.
The two largest awards of the year — Brewery Group/Brewer of the Year and CIdermaker of the Year — were awarded to “Team Allagash” and Allagash Brewing in Portland, Maine; and Don and Sharon Gowan and Gowan’s Heirloom Cider in Philo, California.
Other brewery awards by size included:
- 0-250 barrels: Harrison Forman and Zeus Brewing Co. (Poughkeepsie, New York);
- 251-500 barrels: UPP Liquids (Bend, Oregon);
- 501-1,000 barrels: Cannonball Creek Brewing Co. (Golden, Colorado);
- 1,001-2,000 barrels: River North Brewery (Denver, CO);
- 2,001-5,000 barrels: Third Eye Brewing Co. (Cincinnati, Ohio);
- 5,001-15,000 barrels: Westbound & Down (Westbound Mill, Lafayette, Colorado);
- 15,001-100,000 barrels: Fat Head’s Brewery and the “Hop Squad,” (Middleburg Heights, Ohio).
Forty beers were entered into the Pro-Am competition. The gold medal was awarded to Christopher’s Bier from Christopher Owens and Fritz Family Brewers (Longmont, Colorado). Silver was awarded to Cool Uncle Dunkel from Joel Miller and Hidden Wit Brewing Co. (Moseley, Virginia) while bronze went to Battles for Bavaria from Jeffery Battles and San Diego Brewing Co.
Revive-ALE from Third Eye Brewing and Municipal Brew Works took gold in the Collab competition, beating out 67 other beers. Silver was awarded to Mayan Monkey Brewing and Waredaca Brewing’s La Lumber, while Narrow Path Brewing and Third Eye Brewing’s Mounds of Importance took bronze.
The most competitive category based on number of entries (301) was Juicy or Hazy IPA. Destihl Brewery (Normal, Illinois) took gold in the category with TourBus double dry hopped hazy IPA, while silver was awarded to MadeWest Brewing Co.’s WedWest Hazy (Ventura, California) and bronze was won by Pollyanna Brewing Co.’s Cloud Counter (Lemont, Illinois).
The most competitive cider category was Fruited Cider (53 entries) and was won by Honey Citron from Gowan’s Heirloom Cider (Philo, California), Piper’s Pineapple (Gatlinburg Brewing) and Huckleberry Cosmic Crips (2 Towns Ciderhouse) won silver and bronze, respectively.
There were three non-alcoholic (NA) beer categories in this year’s competition — Classic NA Ale or Lager, Hoppy NA Beer and Specialty NA Beer. In a telling sign of the proliferation of NA beer into craft brewery’s portfolios, only one of the nine medal winners in the three categories was a NA-dedicated craft brewery: Athletic Brewing Co., which took silver in the hoppy category with its Run Wild NA IPA.
Other NA medal winners included:
- Super Stoked, Deschutes Brewery (gold, Classic);
- NA Dark, Fremont Brewing (silver, Classic);
- Ghost Pils, Rhinegeist Brewing (bronze, Classic);
- Space Camper Zero Gravity, Boulevard Brewing (gold, Hoppy);
- East Side of Sober, McCall Collective Brewing (bronze, Hoppy);
- Mango Dragonfruit Sour, Untitled Art (gold, Specialty);
- NA Tangerine Cream, Denver Beer Co. (silver, Specialty);
- Excursion Journeyman, Fat Head’s Brewery (bronze, Specialty).