California brewers bring home the medals!

California craft brewers brought home a total of 39 medals from the annual Great American Beer Festival and Competition held last week in Denver Colorado.

The 39 medals accounted for 18% of the total number of medals handed out, second only to Colorado which had 19% of the total.

The Pizza Port brewery in Carlsbad also won a medal for Large Brewpub and Large Brewpub Brewer of the Year.

The most competitive category was American Style India Pale Ale with 134 entries. The gold medal went to California’s own Firestone Walker Brewing Co. from Paso Robles for Union Jack for the second straight year.

You can view all of the winners here.

The GABF, held in Denver every fall is the largest commercial beer competition in the world with 3,308 entries. In addition to the competition, the festival draws 49,000 attendees to the Denver Convention Center over the course of three days. There were 457 breweries in the festival hall serving a total of 2,100 beers for tasting.

The GABF is truly a phenomenal event, filling the streets of Denver with beer enthusiasts for the weekend. This year, well over 1000 people stood in line even before the doors opened. The event sold out weeks in advance. In times of a tough economy, people (lots of people!) still love good beer!