Appalachian breweries score at GABF

Appalachian regional breweries took home eight medals in addition to a top brewery honor from the Great American Beer Festival (GABF) last Saturday in Denver.

Devils Backbone Brewing Company’s Outpost brewery in Lexington, Virginia, won the prestigious title of Mid-Size Brewing Company and Mid-Size Brewing Company Brewer of the Year for 2014.  This was not the brewery’s first success at the festival. Devils Backbone’s Basecamp brewery in Roseland, VA,  had won small brewery of the year in 2012 and 2013, but this was the first win for its Outpost brewery. The Outpost is located in Appalachia, while Basecamp is not.

Other Appalachian region brewery winners included:

Pisgah Brewing Company of Black Mountain, NC, won a gold medal for its Chocolatized in the Chocolate beer category. The brewery was founded in  2005. http://www.pisgahbrewing.com

Fonta Flora Brewery of Morganton, NC, won gold for its Irish Table Beer in the Classic Irish-style Dry Stout category. The brewery was founded in Oct. 2013.  It was one of the youngest breweries nationally to win a medal this year. http://fontaflora.com

Wicked Weed Brewing Funkatorium of Asheville, NC, won gold for its Mampara  in the Specialty Honey Beer category. The brewery was founded in Dec. 2012. http://www.wickedweedbrewing.com

Four Seasons Brewing Company  of Latrobe, PA, won silver for its Darkside of the Pint  in the Oatmeal Stout category. The brewery was founded in the summer of 2013. http://www.fsbrewing.com

McHale’s Brewhouse of Chattanooga, TN, won gold for its Scottish Pride in the Scottish-style Ale category. The brewery was founded in 2011. http://mchalesbrewhouse.com

Devils Backbone Brewing Company – Outpost of Lexington, VA, took silver for its Old Virginia Dark in the American-style Dark Lager category and won silver for its Turbo Cougar in the Bock category. The brewery was founded in 2009, and the Outpost brewery opened in 2012. http://dbbrewingcompany.com

Brewery Ommegang of Cooperstown, NY, won silver for its Ommegang Witte  in the Belgian-style Witbier category. The brewery was founded in 1997. http://www.ommegang.com

The list includes well-established breweries, such as Brewery Ommegang, Pisgah, and Devils Backbone, alongside breweries only a year or two old. Fonta Flora Brewery was not quite one year old when it won its gold medal for the Dry Irish-style Stout category. Four Seasons Brewing Company of Latrobe, PA, was  only one year old yet took a silver medal for Oatmeal Stout. In both cases these breweries competed against beers from many more-established breweries.

The Appalachian region has a rich brewing heritage and has been home to a number of craft breweries for many years. Following the national trend of recent years, new craft breweries are springing up all over Appalachia.

The state of craft brewing in Appalachia is vibrant. Today, the region produces many innovative and well-made beers. The use of local ingredients is growing, giving those beers a greater taste of place.

The region has shown itself to be competitive on a national scope, as three western-state breweries chose the Asheville region as the location for their eastern operations. Sierra Nevada of Chico, CA, and Oskar Blues of Longmont, CO. have already opened their breweries, and New Belgium of Fort Collins, CO, has one under construction.

Asheville claimed the title of Beer City USA in 2009 through 2012 from the results of a national poll conducted by Examiner.com.

The Great American Beer Festival is known as the premier U.S. beer festival competition. Held each year in Denver, the competition awards gold, silver and bronze medals for excellence in 84 beer-style categories. This year over 5,700 beers were entered for judging and 268 medals were awarded.

The Appalachian region as defined by the Appalachian Regional Commission takes in parts of 13 eastern states. It is an area of rich bio-diversity, culinary traditions, and natural beauty.

BrilliantStream.com is a web site that focuses primarily on craft beverages and local foods of Southern Appalachia.