Goose Island's Bourbon County Apple Crisp isn't scheduled to reach shelves until November 27 and it's already medaling at the biggest beer competition of the year. The Chicago brewery's unreleased 2026 stout took bronze in Dessert or Pastry Beer, sharing the podium with last year's baklava-inspired Proprietor's Stout, which took home gold. That's a very promising sign for this years line-up!
The awards were announced October 11 at Denver's Levitt Pavilion after 225 judges worked through 7,267 entries. California collected 80 of the competition's 336 medals, more than any other state, and three of the eight Brewery of the Year trophies. Oregon's Breakside hauled in six medals on its own. In all, 243 producers won hardware, with entries coming from 49 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.
The Goose Gets Dessert
Third Eye Brewing in Hamilton, Ohio, squeezed between the two Bourbon County bottles with a silver for Kelly's Private Stash.
For 2025 Proprietor's, brewer Colby Magratten took inspiration from the beehives at her aunt's Rhode Island homestead. The baklava idea became a bourbon-barrel-aged stout finished with walnuts, pistachios, cassia bark, and honey.
Photo: Goose Island Beer Company
Apple Crisp goes after a different part of the bakery. Barrel team member Chase Craig built it around the caramelized edges and crumble topping of the dessert, with apple, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, oats, and panela sugar. At 13.9% ABV, it's still very much a Bourbon County stout. The scheduled Black Friday release puts the medal more than six weeks ahead.
We covered this lineup when Goose announced it in July, and I've been dying to know how much of that toasted, caramelized character carries through after the stout and bourbon barrels have had their say.
Add bronzes for Kick Back Lager in American Lager and Hidden Dawn in Belgian-Style Witbier, and Goose finished with four medals and the Brewery of the Year title for companies producing more than 100,000 barrels.
Eight Trophies, Very Different Breweries
The eight Brewery of the Year divisions use combined company production in 2025, so the smallest blendery and a company making more than 100,000 barrels have separate races. Gold counts for six points, silver for five, and bronze for four. Here's where those trophies landed.
| 2025 Company Production | Brewery | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 0–250 barrels | Mieza Blendery | Alexandria, VA |
| 251–500 barrels | UPP Liquids | Bend, OR |
| 501–1,000 barrels | Cannonball Creek | Golden, CO |
| 1,001–2,000 barrels | Craft Coast | Oceanside, CA |
| 2,001–5,000 barrels | Morgan Territory | Tracy, CA |
| 5,001–15,000 barrels | Fieldwork | Berkeley, CA |
| 15,001–100,000 barrels | Breakside | Milwaukie, OR |
| Over 100,000 barrels | Goose Island | Chicago, IL |
A chili beer and an imperial stout helped deliver a trophy to Tracy, California. Morgan Territory won gold with Fire Exit and Raven's Home, part of a four-medal haul.
Up in Bend, Oregon, UPP Liquids collected four medals, three of them gold, and won the 251–500-barrel division. One of those golds went to UPP Yours, a cucumber tart ale, in Field Beer.
Photo: UPP Liquids
The Science Checks Out
The two biggest fields still belonged to the IPAs. Seattle's Human People Beer won West Coast-Style IPA with Before & After Science, topping a field of 277 entries. Bend Brewing took Juicy or Hazy IPA with Because Science, in a field of 260 entries.
Breakside went home with six medals and three golds. One belonged to Breakside IPA, the beer carrying the brewery's name, which was first brewed in 2011. It won GABF gold in 2014, bronze last year, and gold again this year. Fifteen years in and still putting medals on shelves. That's gotta be a pretty crazy trophy case.
Half of Breakside's medals went to lager categories interestingly enough, including gold for Summer Classic in West Coast-Style Pilsener. If you've been reading or following along on social media, you know that's absolutely piquing my curiosity.
Altstadt put Fredericksburg, Texas, on two lager podiums with golds for Oktoberfest in German-Style Maerzen and Pils in German-Style Pilsener. Those categories drew 184 and 161 entries, respectively. Vermont's von Trapp doubled up, too, taking gold with Bohemian Pilsner and Dunkel.
Photo: von Trapp Brewing
Then there's Allagash White, which Allagash first brewed in 1995. Thirty-one years later, it won Belgian-Style Witbier gold at both the World Beer Cup and GABF this year. (Will anyone ever knock them off.......... Probably not).
Smoke, Barrels, and a Chest Freezer
Madrigal spends at least 12 months in sherry and port barrels before blending, according to Atlanta's Monday Night Brewing. The amber Flanders-style oud bruin won Wood- and Barrel-Aged Sour Beer gold. Mieza Blendery in Alexandria, Virginia, took the other two spots with Sulking in The Brush and Minotaurs & Matadors.
Historical Beer put a Polish-style smoked wheat beer and a Kentucky Common on the same podium. Counter Weight in Cheshire, Connecticut, won gold with Grodziskie. Black Lung in Grayslake, Illinois, took silver with Left Fork, a beautiful Kentucky Common made with flaked maize and noble hops.
Part of the malt for Roaring Table's Direct Fire goes through Chicago Culinary Kitchen in Palatine, Illinois. It's smoked for several hours over the same cherrywood the restaurant uses for its barbecue. I definitely need to get my hands on this.
Early batches of Northbound Smokehouse Brewpub's Eisbock started with two kegs of flat doppelbock left outside overnight at minus 11°F. As founder and brewer Jamie Robinson explained in Craft Beer & Brewing, a chest freezer now does the job because Minneapolis can't be counted on to provide enough days that cold. The beer won German-Style Strong Beer silver this year, following golds in 2024 and 2025.
Photo: Courtesy Northbound Smokehouse & Brewpub, via Craft Beer & Brewing
Freezing out some of the water concentrates the flavor and alcohol. Robinson estimated the finished beer at 16–17% ABV, but said it hadn't been tested. His term for the calculations:
scientific wild-ass guesses
The 2024 gold-winning batch actually froze solid. They drew the beer off as it thawed. Another year, kegs without enough room for the ice to expand were destroyed, leaking Eisbock everywhere.
That's a fairly expensive way to remember that water expands if you ask me.
Three Non-Alcoholic Golds
The Specialty Non-Alcohol Beer podium covered a lot of ground. Fieldwork won gold with Day Money, a grapefruit blonde. Right behind it, Go Brewing in Naperville, Illinois, took silver with F*kin Pumpkin and bronze with New School Sour Berry. Grapefruit, pumpkin pie, and a berry sour, all in one category.
Go builds F*kin Pumpkin on a brown ale, adding pumpkin purée, lactose, and pie spices. New School goes with blueberry and strawberry in a non-alcoholic kettle sour. Of the two, the brown ale is the one I'm most curious about.
Photo: Go Brewing
The non-alcoholic competition also has separate classic and hoppy categories. Deschutes in Bend, Oregon, won the classic gold with Super Stoked, while Burlington, Vermont's Zero Gravity took the hoppy gold with Conehead Zero.
GABF went beyond beer with a new Hop Water category, too. It drew 37 entries, and Founders took the first gold with Hoppy Mood.
A Different Grain Bill
Rice Lager was new this year, and that feels LONG overdue. It drew 110 entries, with gold going to Masthead's Oni Giri out of Cleveland, Ohio. If you've ever had Masthead, this probably isn't a massive surprise. They make some of the most slept on lagers in the entire country.
The one-time Craft Malt Beer category asked a different question: where did the malt come from? Under the rules for this category, at least half the malt had to come from a qualifying craft maltster. Dostal Alley's Jacob Mack Mild Ale took gold out of 132 entries.
At The Well in Wellington, Colorado, the malt comes from sister company Grouse Malt House, which works with naturally gluten-free grains including millet and buckwheat. Altbier took gold in Classic Gluten-Free Ale or Lager, one of this year's three new standalone gluten-free categories.
The hoppy gold went to Hell Yeah, from Armored Cow in Charlotte, North Carolina. Orange Bike in Portland, Maine, won Specialty Gluten-Free Beer with Pumpkin Ale.
Photo: Armored Cow Brewing Co.
The Apples Get Their Own Hardware
Snow Capped claimed every spot on the No/Low Tannin Cider podium: The Russets took gold, Harrison Reserve silver, and Pink Pearl bronze. Three medals in one category, five overall, and CiderMaker of the Year for the Colorado cidery.
Gowan's Heirloom Cider in Philo, California, matched that five-medal total, including Fruited Cider gold for Honey Citron. It uses heirloom apples from the family's orchard, California honey, and citron fruit for what the cidery describes as a "lemony cider".
Photo: Gowan's Heirloom Cider
Snow Capped and Gowan’s are getting a closer look from me after this, admittedly, I've never been much of a cider fan, so I'm hoping they can change my mind! That goes for plenty of the breweries we’ve covered, too. California’s 80 medals are hard to ignore as well, but are we really that surprised? Truthfully, I’m most likely to start with the lagers, although Go has me curious about that pumpkin brown. Apple Crisp also has my attention as well. Moral of the story? Fall flavors rule and we need more of them, but also, that puts me back to waiting until November 27. I’ve now spent several months thinking about the top of a dessert, so I’d appreciate being able to drink the beer anytime soon.
