A bittersweet moment for Arizona highlighted the medal ceremony at the 2023 Great American Beer Festival on Saturday in Denver, Colorado.
Flying Basset Brewing captured the only gold medal for a brewery in our state, winning in the Contemporary Gose category for Citrus Snack. Earlier this month on Instagram, Flying Basset announced it’s final day of operations would be September 30.
- The Arizona Craft Beer Awards Festival is October 21. Get tickets today!
Arizona breweries in total took home six awards, including a silver medal for Tucson’s Basin + Range, a silver for Lumberyard in Flagstaff and two bronze medals for Wren House.
The six medals is the best showing at GABF for our state since 2019, when Arizona totaled 8 medals. In 1998, Arizona captured 9 medals — the most of any year for the state in GABF history.
Here are all the AZ winners at GABF 2023:
- Fate Brewing Co. won bronze in the American Sour Ale category for Fate Single Hop Sour.
- Flying Basset Brewing won gold in the Contemporary Gose category for Citrus Snack.
- Basin + Range won silver in the Contemporary Gose category for In Bloom.
- Lumberyard Brewing Co. won silver in the Extra Special Bitter category for Railhead Red.
- Wren House Brewing won bronze in the Extra Special Bitter category for Hooks & Dun.
- Wren House Brewing won bronze in the Juicy or Hazy Imperial IPA category for Blue Quad Roller Skates.
Fun fact: the first Arizona brewery to win a medal at GABF was Black Mountain Brewing Co. in 1990 for a beer named Crazy Ed’s Arizona Pilsner. It won bronze in the European Pilsner category.
