The Great American Beer Festival (GABF) is an amazing event for both attendees and brewers. Beer drinkers love that they are able to expand their beer horizons by tasting beer from 700+ breweries as they literally walk across the country (the festival is organized by region). Brewers look forward to GABF for many reasons, but one major draw is the competition.
The beer competition is a highly competitive event that is judged by a professional panel of 200+ judges from 10 countries. The judges conduct a series of blind tastings and judge each beer to the category guidelines. The judges then deliberate to award medals to the exceptional entries.
This year, 5,507 beers were entered and 268 medals were awarded. These beers will be recognized for years to come as the best from their category when it comes to criteria like taste, aroma, color, etc. And while all of the winners stand out as phenomenal beers, some of them are attention grabbers due to their names alone.
In 2013, we shared “10 Awesome Beer Names from the Great American Beer Festival,” and this year I have taken the liberty to find 10 more names that stood out to me as some of the greats! We might just have to make this a yearly tradition. Here are the amazing beer names in alphabetical order, including what medal they won in 2014:
- Batshit Crazy | MobCraft Beer | Madison, WI | Silver: Coffee Beer
- Darkside of the Pint | Four Seasons Brewing Co. | Latrobe, PA | Silver: Oatmeal Stout
- Dubbel Entendre | Sound Brewery | Poulsbo, WA | Bronze: Belgian-Style Abbey Ale
- Elektrick Cukumbahh | Trinity Brewing | Colorado Springs, CO | Bronze: Field Beer
- I’d Like to Buy the World a Kolsch | Old Town Brewing Co. | Portland, OR | Silver: German-Style Kolsch
- Jean-Claude Van Blond | Wit’s End Brewing Co. | Denver, CO | Gold: Belgian-Style Blonde Ale or Pale Ale
- Lagerithm | Bottle Logic Brewing | Anaheim, CA | Gold: American-Style Dark Lager
- Nutcase Peanut Butter Porter | Listermann/Triple Digit Brewing Co. | Cincinnati, OH | Bronze: Specialty Beer
- Rye of the Tiger | Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant | Media, PA | Silver: Rye Beer
- Sweet Baby Jesus! | DuClaw Brewing Co. | Rosedale, MD | Bronze: Chocolate Beer
Check out the complete 2104 Great American Beer Festival winners list.
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Atalie Rhodes is the current Craft Beer Program intern at the Brewers Association. Her love of craft beer led her to becoming a trainer at Yard House Restaurants, but she is constantly seeking more beer knowledge. If she is not at a brewery asking a plethora of questions about their beer, she is probably out fishing, playing volleyball or reading one of her favorite books.
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