Strangebird, New York Beer Project among NYS winners at Great American Beer Fest
Strangebird, New York Beer Project among NYS winners at Great American Beer Fest
NYS doubled its medal winners in the 2024 competition
Strangebird and New York Beer Project were the big local winners at the latest edition of the Great American Beer Fest in Denver, the most prestigious beer competition in the country.
In total, six NYS breweries garnered medals when results were announced last weekend.
NYBP, specifically the new Orchard Park branch, earned a gold medal in the experimental India pale category (86 total entries) for its Hazy Crush IPA, while Rochester-based Stranegbird continued its impressive run since opening three years ago.
Fresh off winning a bronze medal for its hazy double IPA, Strangebird earned a bronze in the American Fruit Beer category for its Bird Light Yuzu American light lager. Strangebird has been crushing the lager game recently. The most recent Marzen and Festbier releases were both killer.
With its brewing team led by director of brewing operations Jason Crossett and head brewer John Hyman, NYBP has been quietly crushing it lately. It has won multiple medals (emphasis on multiple) at the most recent editions of the New York State Craft Beer Competition. And the NYBP empire features palatial outposts in Victor, Lockport, Orchard Park, and Orlando, Fla. Admittedly, I haven’t tried the Hazy Crush, but I plan to get out to Ontario County soon to grab a pour and will report back.
Strangebird, which features food (thanks Chef Nate Stahl — no Pizza Wizard supplied shade here) that’s every bit as good as the beer, will produces about 800 barrels of beer this year. Bird Light Yuzu is a riff on its base Bird Light and it features yuzu, a Japanese citrus fruit. Truly, you won’t find a more thirst-quenching beer in Rochester. Starr Hill (Richmond, Virginia) and Trademark Brewing (Long Beach, Calif.) took gold and silver respectively in the category.
GABF, the largest competition in the country, featured 326 medals awarded to 273 breweries and cideries. In total, there were 285 judges involved during the seven-day competition. They evaluated beers and ciders across 102 beer categories (including 170 subcategories) with 8,836 commercial beer entries from 1,869 breweries and cideries from all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.
Paul Leone, New York State Brewers Association executive director, said the state went from three medalists in 2023 to six medalists in 2024.
“We know New York breweries are making some of the best beer in the country,” Leone said in a release. “This year, we encouraged more breweries to enter and the NYSBA shipped all the entries out to Denver for judging in a refrigerated truck. As a result, we doubled our number of wins from 3 last year to 6 this year. This is one of the toughest competitions in the world to win a medal in, so they should all be very proud.”
Other NYS winners included:
● SILVER - Coconut Cluster (Dessert Stout or Pastry Stout) - Heritage Hill Brewhouse, Pompey, Onondaga County;
● GOLD - Peach Silhouette (Fruited American Sour Ale) - Hudson Valley Brewery, Beacon, Dutchess County;
● GOLD - Pleasantbräu Oktoberfest (German-Style Maerzen) - Soul Brewing Co., Pleasantville, Westchester County;
● BRONZE - Special Effects Grapefruit IPA (Specialty Non-Alcohol Beer) - Brooklyn Brewery, Brooklyn, Kings County.
For a spectacular recap of the competition, I heartily recommend paying a visit to Chris O’Leary’s wonderful Brew York newsletter. And if you haven’t, make sure you subscribe to Brew York. It’s awesome to follow along with Chris’ travels and no one covers the NYC beer scene better than him.
A final note: It’s pretty wild to think I’ve been working on this independent publication for over two years now. In that time, I’ve published 200 newsletters, highlighted some of my favorite people in the industry, curated two beers festivals (that featured 150 participants and 4,600 attendees), and continued to break all the biggest news in the region (closures, consolidations, openings, etc.).
The Cleveland Prost remains the preeminent source for regional beer news. If you own a brewery, bar, or beer-adjacent business, this is the best place to reach the nerds you wanna be in front of. So I remain open to sponsorships, advertisements, and sponsored content. Feel free to reach out to me at clevelandprost@gmail.com for more. And more than anything, thanks for all the support. None of this would be possible without the devoted (and thirsty) audience.