Crow & Wolf Brewing Sweeps Hard Seltzer Category at 2026 Brewers Cup of California — Brewery’s Second Sweep in Three Years

Clovis brewery takes gold, silver, and bronze in Hard Seltzer (Flavored Malt Beverage), plus bronze in Coffee-Flavored Beer, for a four-medal showing

CLOVIS, CA — [SEND DATE, e.g., May 5, 2026] — Crow & Wolf Brewing Co., an independent craft brewery in Clovis, California, took home four medals at the 2026 Brewers Cup of California, including a complete sweep of the Hard Seltzer (Flavored Malt Beverage) category. The competition, announced on April 24, was judged blind by a panel of more than 60 industry judges who evaluated 1,323 entries from 203 independent California breweries. The 2026 results mark Crow & Wolf’s second sweep of the Hard Seltzer category in three years; the brewery also took all three medal positions in the same category at the 2024 Brewers Cup of California and has placed in the category every year since 2023.

The brewery’s 2026 medals are:

• Gold — Dark Wolf (Hard Seltzer, FMB) — a boysenberry-and-vanilla seltzer designed to taste like a sorbet
• Silver — Maui Sunset (Hard Seltzer, FMB) — a POG profile of passionfruit, orange, and guava
• Bronze — Hello Sunshine (Hard Seltzer, FMB) — watermelon and lime
• Bronze — Odyssey (Coffee-Flavored Beer) — a coffee stout brewed with vanilla and milk sugar

“Lager and seltzer are both styles that punish shortcuts,” said Don Anderson, President and CEO at Crow & Wolf Brewing Co. “There’s nowhere for a flaw to hide in a clean seltzer or a clean lager — blind judges find them every time. Sweeping a category in front of that kind of panel, twice in three years, is the result we wanted when we built this program. We’re proud of the team.”

The Brewers Cup of California, organized by the California Craft Brewers Association and held annually in Sacramento, awards gold, silver, and bronze in 73 style categories. Crow & Wolf, which produces a sugar-based fermentation seltzer line alongside its beer, mead, and wine programs, has emphasized cocktail-inspired flavor builds and small-batch flexibility — including limited offerings such as Cosmonaut, an 8% Moscow Mule-inspired seltzer; Buckle Bunny, a margarita-inspired ranch water; and Jam Session, a Concord-grape and peanut-butter-and-jelly riff.

“Maui Sunset was a newer addition to the line, and we’re glad it landed where it did,” said Brad Gaines, Head Brewer at Crow & Wolf. “Hello Sunshine has been on tap for a while now, and it’s been quietly earning its spot. Dark Wolf has been our anchor since the seltzer program started. Seeing all three of them on the podium together feels like the program is doing what we hoped it would.”

Crow & Wolf operates a customer-facing taproom at 526 Spruce Ave, Clovis, CA 93611, with brewing operations at 527 Park Creek Dr. in the same complex. The brewery is dog- and family-friendly, with garage-door open-air seating, weekly rotating food trucks, and a tap list that spans lagers, IPAs, mead, and wine alongside the seltzer program. Beer and seltzer ship within California; merchandise ships nationally. The brewery also produces Lobo, its Mexican-style lager, which won a US Open Beer Championship Gold Medal in the Mexican-Style Lager category in 2023.

Full results from the 2026 Brewers Cup of California are available at brewerscupofca.com/2026-winners. More on Crow & Wolf’s seltzer program and competition results is available at cawbrewing.com/blog/craft-seltzer-vs-hard-seltzer/.

About Crow & Wolf Brewing Co.

Crow & Wolf Brewing Co. is an independent craft brewery and taproom in Clovis, California, producing beer, hard seltzer, mead, and wine. The brewery has earned multiple medals at state and national competitions, including a US Open Beer Championship Gold Medal in 2023 for its Mexican-style lager, Lobo, and category sweeps in Hard Seltzer at the 2024 and 2026 Brewers Cup of California. The taproom is located at 526 Spruce Ave, Clovis, CA 93611, with garage-door open-air seating and weekly rotating food trucks. More information is available at cawbrewing.com and on Instagram @cawbrewingco.