Texas GABF Winners 2014

This is a guest post by Andrew Schwab.

Texas GABF Winners 2014

Another year has come and gone for the Great American Beer Festival. For those who have never been, it has turned into a week long party for craft brewers and fans in Denver that ended Saturday with the GABF award ceremony. There were 90 categories ranging from American Style-Wheat Beer to Historical Beers and Wood-and-Barrel-Aged Sour Beers. The number of entries per category ranges from twenty to hundreds of entries.

This year, the state of Texas brought home 16 awards. They are as follows:

Armadillo Image Craft Beer Austin — Armadillo Ale Works celebrating their Gold Medal

Gold:
Armadillo Ale Works – Quakertown – Imperial Stout
Community Beer Company – Public Ale – Extra Special Bitter
Grapevine Brewing – Sir William’s Extra Brown Ale – English Style Brown
Oasis Texas Brewing – London Homesick – Special Bitter Category
Peticolas – 2012 Great Scot – Aged Beer
Real Ale – Benedictum – Belgium Style Lambic or Sour Ale

Silver:
5 Stones – Aloha Pina – Herb and Spice Beer
Austin Beerworks – Fire Eagle – American Style Strong Pale Ale
Pedernales Brewing – Lobo Negro – German Style Schwartzbier
St Arnolds – Summer Pils – Munich Style Helles
Thirsty Planet -Yellow Armadillo – American Style Wheat Beer

Yellow Armadillo image — Silver Medal Thirsty Planet – Yellow Armadillo – American Style Wheat Beer

Bronze:
Community – Ascension Coffee Porter – Coffee Beer
Pinthouse Pizza – Jaguar Shark – Wood and Barrel Aged Strong Stout
Rahr and Sons – The Regulator – German Style Doppelbock or Eisbock
Spoetzl – Shiner Bock – American Style Dark Lager
St. Arnolds – Weedwacker – German Style Wheat Ale

This is the most Texas has ever brought home from the festival. Below is a breakdown of how many Texas has brought back over the last 5 years:

2010: 6
2011: 4
2012: 9
2013: 10
2014: 16

Needless to say, things are looking up for beer in Texas. The competition at the festival gets tougher every year and Texas continues to pull in more awards.

To give some perspective, California, Colorado and Oregon have a history of dominating the competition. Part of this is due to the sheer number of breweries that are in those states and their history with brewing. Even through this, Texas is starting to gain on those states. This how the awards played out for top 10 states.

California – 46

Colorado – 39

Oregon – 22

Texas – 16

Pennsylvania – 12

Washington – 9

Illinois – 9

New Mexico – 8

Wisconsin – 7

Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, North Carolina – 6

Even with those results, it is interesting comparing those numbers to the number of breweries in each state. Those can be seen here, thanks to information from the Brewer’s Association.

California: 381

Colorado: 175

Oregon: 181

Texas: 96

Pennsylvania: 108

Washington: 201

Illinois: 83

New Mexico: 31

Wisconsin: 90

North Carolina: 91

Michigan: 131

Minnesota: 83

Montana: 39

California clearly has the most breweries in the nation, which explains their haul at the GABF. Needless to say, we have a lot of great beer in Texas and the beer community is starting to notice.

Congratulations to all of the Texas breweries who came home with an award. I am looking forward to what all of the new breweries have in line for us in the future.

Andrew’s Bio: My craft beer journey started sometime in university when light beer just was not cutting it anymore. I started venturing out to the beer store and buying any 6 pack that I had not had before. This has now continued for ten years. You will see me visiting almost any and every brewery that I can. I have a passion for travel, craft beer, and college football.

When I am not drinking craft beer, I work as a manufacturing engineer in Austin.
Twitter: @andrewlschwab
Untappd: aschwab