Two Cincinnati breweries that are no strangers to winning medals added some new hardware to their collections with victories at the Great American Beer Festival on Friday night.
The festival and awards ceremony were conducted virtually this year, but Brink Brewing Co. and Fretboard Brewing Company were still able to celebrate victories.
Brink won a gold medal in the Sweet Stout or Milk Stout category for their Moozie Milk Stout. This is the third straight win for Moozie in this category at GABF, an impressive feat of consistency.
Brink has racked up tons of medals in their short three-plus years, including winning Very Small Brewery of the Year in both 2018 and 2019. This is Brink’s ninth overall medal at GABF.
I recently featured Brink on my Brewery Adventures podcast, where Michael Amann from Adena Distributing joined me to discuss the brewery, their impressive streak of winning medals, and a potential expansion over the upcoming years with Adena distributing their beer.
Fretboard won a silver medal in the Belgian-style and French-style Ale category for their Crazy Train. This is the first GABF win for this beer, but Crazy Train also won medals at the US Open Beer Championship over the past two years.
The great thing about these two beers is that they’re regularly available at the breweries and aren’t one-offs that are difficult to find.
In total, eight Ohio breweries took home nine medals this year, including Fat Head’s, Noble Beast and Masthead from the Cleveland area, Columbus’ Wolf’s Ridge with two medals, Dayton’s Lock 27, and Athens’ Little Fish.