'Bottoms' up: Blue Mountain, Devils Backbone grab some Gold

Something brewing: Taylor and Mandi Smack makin' beer.
PHOTO COURTESY BMB

A shout out to the Blue Mountain Brewery and Devils Backbone Brewing Company for nabbing some Gold Medals at the 2010 Great American Beer Festival this past weekend in Denver, Colorado. On September 18, Blue Mountain won in the American-style Wheat Beer category for it new end-of-summer wheat beer called Sandy Bottom. Blue Mountain also took home a bronze medal in the German-style Kolsch category for one of its year-round bottled and draft beers called Kolsch 151.

"It's a very delicate German style of ale," says Blue Mountain brewmaster Taylor Smack of the Kolsch 151, "and we competed against 45 other entrants in the category to be recognized as one of the top three. And our gold medal Sandy Bottom is actually premiering this Thursday night out at the brewery. It's a great way to roll out a new beer."

Devils Backbone, however, can boast two gold medals: one in the American-style or International-style pilsener category with a beer called Gold Leaf Lager, and another one in the unusual coffee flavored beer category with its Baltic Coffee. They also took home two bronze medals, one in the South German-style Hefeweizen category for its Wintergreen Weiss, and another in the English-style mild ale for its Ale of Fergus

The Festival attracted 151 judges from 10 countries, scrutinizing 3,523 beers over several days of blind tastings. Beers representing 516 breweries were featured in the competition which saw increased geographic diversity among medal winners, with an emerging trend of winners from the Midwest and the Southeast alongside the traditionally successful states like California and Colorado.

"Other states appear to be emerging as the craft beer producer and consumer markets mature in their regions," said GABF competition manager Chris Swersey.

The Festival drew a crowd of over 49,000 in the three days.