This year’s Great American Beer Festival awarded gold medals to three WNC breweries: Black Mountain’s Pisgah Brewing in the chocolate beer category, Asheville’s Wicked Weed Brewing Funkatorium in specialty honey beer, and Morganton’s Fonta Flora in the classic Irish-style dry stout category, according to the U.S. Brewers Association website.
Pisgah won with its Chocolatized; Wicked Weed won with its Mampara; and Fonta FLora won with its Irish Table.
Two other North Carolina brewers will take home medals: Mystery won a silver medal in the “other Belgian style ale” category and Duck Rabbit won a silver in German-style marzen and a bronze in German-style schwarzbier.
Oskar Blues and Sierra Nevada — who have both made their second homes in WNC — also won medals: Colorado/WNC brewer Oskar Blues won a silver for Death by Coconut in the chocolate beer category (the same category Pisgah won gold in); and California/WNC brewer Sierra Nevada won a bronze for its Narwhal Imperial Stout in the imperial stout category.
According to the Brewers Association:
Boulder, CO • October 4, 2014—The 2014 Great American Beer Festival (GABF) competition awarded 268 medals to some of the best commercial breweries in the United States, plus three GABF Pro-Am medals. Presented by the Brewers Association, GABF is the largest commercial beer competition in the world and a symbol of brewing excellence. In its 28th year, the 2014 competition surpassed all previous participation records.”
Summary: 2014 Great American Beer Festival Statistics710 breweries in the festival hall
- More than 3,500 beers served at the festival
- 49,000 attendees
- More than 3,200 volunteers
- 1,309 breweries in the competition from 50 states plus Washington, D.C.
- 5,507 beers judged (not including 89 Pro-Am competition entries), a 16 percent increase over 2013
- 90 style categories judged, plus the Pro-Am competition
- 222 judges from 10 countries
- Average number of competition beers entered in each category: 61.2 (excludes Pro-Am beers)
- Category with highest number of entries: American-Style India Pale Ale: 279
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