DENVER — Left Hand Brewing won the largest Brewery of the Year award at the Great American Beer Festival Saturday, leading a monster day for Colorado breweries that captured medals for a 10th straight year, a state-record 10th medal for a beer and trumpeted that they produce the best IPA in America.
Twenty-five Colorado breweries captured a total of 27 medals in the annual competition — including five gold medals in addition to the Brewery of the Year award won by Left Hand, which is based in Longmont. That ranked second only to the 77 medals won by the state of California and well ahead of the 21 captured by the third-place state, Texas.
>Video above: Meet one of the beer judges at this year's GABF.
The haul of medals represented a comeback of sorts for Colorado, which last year won 21 medals but did not rank among the top two states for medals for the first time since 2000. And the excitement regarding the winnings was palpable among the brewers who congratulated each other and celebrated at the first GABF held in person since 2019.
Shawnee Adelson, executive director of the Colorado Brewers Guild, called Saturday, which was the final day of the three-day 40th GABF at the Colorado Convention Center, “a great day for Colorado beer.” She noted that in addition to the Brewery of the Year Award — the first won by a Colorado beermaker since 2019 — state breweries demonstrated versatility across categories and consistency of products in winning awards for beers and portfolios that had captured medals in past years too.
RELATED: A look at GABF by the numbers
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