Three Houston breweries take home medals at beer festival
The taproom at Great Heights Brewing Company in Oak Forest has a new decoration this week. Upon returning home from the Great American Beer Festival in Colorado, owners Sean Bednarz and Patrick Christian hung a framed bronze metal, along with a label for the brewery’s Bourbon Legend beer, which earned third place in the Wood- and BarrelAged Strong Beer category.
The Great American Beer Festival is the nation’s top beer festival and competition, bringing together the largest collection of craft beer ever served in a festival and competition that has been considered a top honor for craft brewers since its founding in 1982. The festival is hosted annually in Denver; this year, it took place during the first weekend of October.
This is the first medal earned by Great Heights at the national competition. More than 150 breweries submitted entries in their category. And on Wednesday evening, brewerygoers jokingly asked their bartenders whether the honor will up the price of the $10-a-can beer. (It won’t.)
Spindletap Brewery, which is also a relatively new addition to the city’s beer scene, having first opened its doors in 2015, took home a silver medal at the event. Honey Hole came in second out of 66 contenders in the Honey Beer category.
And Houston’s oldest craft brewery took home a third place award as well. Saint Arnold won a bronze medal for its Pumpkinator, in the Pumpkin/Squash Beer or Pumpkin Spice Beer category, which included entries from 51 breweries.
Saint Arnold is no stranger to the festival. In 2017, the brewery was named Midsize Brewery of the Year. Still, as the depth of competition increases, the honor feels ever sweeter, according to Saint Arnold founder Brock Wagner.
“As the competition gets bigger and the number of entries keeps growing, it’s even more rewarding for our team to consistently be on the stage bringing home a medal. Quality is a core value for us and our performance at the Great American Beer Festival is a reflection of this,” Wagner said.