New Belgium, Gilded Goat win GABF gold medals
Jacob LaxenA pair of Fort Collins' breweries took home gold medals Saturday morning at the Great American Beer Festival at Denver's Bellco Theatre.
New Belgium Brewing and Gilded Goat Brewing claimed top prizes among a record 8,864 entries from 2,404 breweries at the annual "Super Bowl" of the American brewing industry. Fellow Northern Colorado breweries Windsor’s High Hops Brewery and Longmont’s Left Hand Brewing also walked away with gold medals.
New Belgium, Colorado’s largest craft brewery, added to its large collection of hardware with a gold medal in the collaboration category for its Transatlantique Kriek made with Belgian brewery Oud Beersel. The cherry lambic ale is aged in oak foeders.
It’s the 15th GABF gold medal the brewery has won in its history.
New Belgium also claimed a silver medal Saturday for its Dayblazer Easygoing Ale in the American-style cream ale category. The year-round 4.8-percent ABV beer was released last year.
Gilded Goat Brewing won gold for its Guten Bock in the bock category. The 6.6-percent ABV German lager is available year-round at the brewery, 3500 S. College Ave., which opened in February 2017.
Gilded Goat had also recently won a silver medal for its Guten Bock at the 2018 Colorado State Fair, also claiming a gold for its Belgian Grisette and a bronze for its plum brown sour called Plumicious.
Windsor’s High Hops Brewery, which is adding a distillery to its facility, won gold for its gluten-free beer Puckerberry.
Longmont’s Left Hand Brewing won gold for one of its flagship brews, Sawtooth Ale, in the ordinary or special bitter category.
MORE:All of the 2018 GABF gold medal winners
A pair of Loveland breweries also took home medals. Grimm Brothers Brewhouse won silver for its German-style Altbier called Little Red Cap. Crow Hop Brewing won bronze in the brown porter competition for its Knee-Knocker porter.
Greeley’s Wiley Roots Brewing won a silver for its Citra Dry Hopped Funk Yo Couch, in the mixed-culture Brett beer category.