Silver City Brewery wins big at Great American Beer Festival

Silver City Brewery has been attending the Great American Beer Festival since 1998 and after a few gold medals over the years, the brewery finally earned the Mid-Sized Brewery of the Year Award last weekend.

“This is a huge honor, a lot of great beers are entered and the competition is stiff,” owner Scott Houmes said. “To be recognized is an amazing feat and one of the highest honors we can aspire to in competition.”

The Great American Beer Festival (GABF) is an annual event held in Denver, Colorado that invites breweries from all across the country to participate. Participants must be members of the National Brewers Association

While the event is open to the public as a festival, it is also a competition. Breweries can enter their beers to be judged by a panel of professionals. The panel will award medals to the beers that best represent each style. The judging is handled in five, three-hour sessions throughout the festival in which the panel tastes beers without knowing the brand to make a determination.

There are 322 judges from 18 states.

This year was the 33rd edition of the GABF competition with nearly 9,500 submissions from nearly 3,000 breweries from all over the country including Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

While winning medals is nice, the big prize is the Brewery of the Year Award, of which the medals earned count towards a breweries chance of winning.

The Brewery of the Year Award is broken down into categories based on the size and production of the brewery. The categories range from very small breweries that produced less than 1,000 barrels a year to large breweries that produce over 6 million barrels a year.

The mid-size category stipulates that a brewery must produce at least 15,000 to 6 million barrels a year. Silver City produces roughly 27,000 barrels per year.

“We’re ranked in the top-10 beer producers in the state,” Houmes said.

Silver City won a gold medal for its “Foxy Lady” Belgian Style Fruit Beer and a silver medal for its “Old Scrooge” Strong Ale. Both beers have earned Silver City medals at the GABF over the years, in addition to its Ridge Top Red and Clear Creek Pale Ale.

Silver City has been representing Kitsap County at the GABF for the last five years, with Sound Brewery being the only other brewery to earn a medal.

Fresh off this exciting win Silver City is getting ready to release some new and seasonal brews such as its Wonderland Winter beer which is a dark lager, Ride the Spiral pineapple and orange IPA and a re-release of its Old Scrooge Christmas Ale.