Long Beach’s Beachwood Brewing named brewpub of the year

Long Beach’s Beachwood Brewing has a couple more medals to add to its trophy case after the Great American Beer Fest (GABF) was held in Denver over the weekend, including “large brewpub of the year.”

Beachwood Brewing also earned a coveted gold medal in the “coffee beers” category for Mocha Machine and a silver medal in “French- and Belgian-style saison” for Un Atout, and the Beachwood brewing team of Julian Shrago and Ian McCall were named Champion Brewers. Last year, Beachwood took home five medals and was named “mid-sized brewpub of the year.”

This year’s competition was the largest ever with more than 5,500 entries from 1,300 breweries across the country. It took more than 200 beer judges to taste and evaluate all those beers before awarding medals in 90 different categories ranging from American light lagers to Zwickle beers.

Once again, California came up big with nearly 50 medals going to Golden State breweries.

In Orange County, Bootleggers Brewery in Fullerton took two bronze medals for Rocco Red Ale and Galaxian barley wine, and Anaheim’s Bottle Logic Brewing won a gold for its Lagerithm American dark lager, while San Diego-area breweries were awarded more than a dozen medals -- including a sweep of the “session beer” category.

You can view all the winners in the searchable database on the GABF website, or download a pdf.