Well in case you didn’t notice over the weekend, we KILLED it at the GABF this year. We did get beaten out for Large Brewpub of the Year by Rock Bottom. We won 6 medals, they won 8. I will point out, however, that we have far fewer locations than RB and that 6 out of 7 of our brewers won a medal including 4 GOLDS!!!! Jack Curtin has a complete listing of the East Coast Results over here if you need more details.

Anyway here’s how WE did:  Four Golds: Chris LaPierre, Saison de Hill (West Chester); Bob Barrar, Lambic de Hill (Media); Tim Stumpf, Roggenbier (Phoenixville); Justin Sproul, Vienna Red Lager (Newark); Silver: Your’s Truly Larry Horwitz, Cherry Dubbel (North Wales); Bronze: Brian Finn, Cassis de Hill (Wilmington).

As usual this year’s Fest was the biggest and bestest ever with 46,000 attendees, 2600 volunteers, 432 breweries, 2902 beers judged, and 50+ Iron Holligans cheering us on. No bail had to be posted, and everyone made it home safe and sound. (One of my favorite Mark Edelson quotes is, “The Iron Hill Credit Card is NOT for Bail Bonds!”)

This year’s winner of the Michael Jackson Beer Journalism award was our friend  Lew Bryson  for his story “The Real History of Beer”  in All About Beer Magazine. I hear they won’t be giving out these awards at the fest any more. That might be some kind of conflict of interest thing, but we’ll have to wait and see. I’m just glad Lew got a chance to take home some bling too!

Our Pro-Am beer didn’t win this year, but the category EXPLODED with over 60 entries. That means it pretty much melted down into a best of show competition which makes it nearly impossible to judge. Apples and oranges don’t you know. Here’s a picture of the Pro-Am booth where our very own Dave Grosch’s Dunkles was on tap. It made a fine showing (that’s beer-ese for it all got drank). Dave made it out to the fest this year and had a grand old time. I’m still waiting for the blow by blow but I’ll give a full report on his doings soon. Doug listed ‘bring a medal to North Wales’ as his Bucket List item this year…so he says he’s either got to die now or get a new Bucket List. We are voting for the latter and not the former. The Cherry Dubbel was his idea and credit must be give. Nice Job Douglas!

I’ll have photos and videos from the fest in the next few days. Thanks to everyone who came out to Denver to support us. You guys rock!