[image-1] It was a banner showing for Ohio craft brewers at this year’s Great American Beer Festival (GABF), with the Buckeye State hauling in 15 medals, the most in a single year. As the nation’s most prestigious brewing competition, the results at GABF speak volumes about the quality of beer being produced in Ohio.
Greater Cleveland breweries earned the bulk of the hardware, led by Fat Head’s Brewery, which took home a gold medal in the Imperial Red Ale category for its Bone Head Imperial Red, a silver in the Fresh Hop Beer category for Hop Stalker, and a bronze for Up in Smoke in the Smoke Beer category.
Other winners include Market Garden Brewery, which snagged a gold in the South German-style Hefeweizen category for Prosperity Wheat. Hofbräuhaus Cleveland earned a bronze for its Schwarzbier Dark Lager, Noble Beast Brewing secured a bronze for its Murder Ballads Baltic-style Porter, Akron’s Hoppin’ Frog Brewery took home a bronze Pentuple Belgian-style Ale, and Wooster-based JAFB won a bronze medal for JAF IPA, an American-style Strong Pale Ale.
“Ohio breweries work so hard every day to create exceptional beers and memorable experiences in their taprooms, it’s great to see them recognized alongside the country’s best” Mary MacDonald, executive director of the Ohio Craft Brewers Association, said in a release. “A showing like this on the biggest stage in craft beer just reinforces that Ohio has emerged as a leader in the industry and a destination for world-class beer.”
For a complete list of winners, click here.
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This article appears in Oct 2-8, 2019.
disclosure: the author is best friends with sam mcnulty, the owner of market garden, one of the breweries promoted in this article.