This year�s Great American Beer Festival, the biggest beer event in the country, proved to be another fruitful competition for Texas breweries.

Although the state�s brewers didn�t top 2014�s record of winning 16 gold, silver and bronze medals at GABF � or last year�s unprecedentedly high number of gold medals in particular � one local brewpub represented Texas� potential as a craft beer powerhouse in a big way.

Held as always in Denver, the festival this weekend saw a record-shattering number of breweries participating in the competition. According to the Brewers Association, the organization that produces the fest each year, winners were selected from 7, 227 competition entries, a number nearly nine percent higher than the 6,647 entries last year and �surpassing all previous participation records.� A total of 1,752 breweries sent in their beers for judging.

All of that fierce competition didn�t matter for Austin�s the ABGB, however.

The brewpub on West Oltorf Street first learned at the awards ceremony on Saturday that it had grabbed a gold medal for the ABGB Industry Pilsner in the German Pilsner category. Not long afterward, the ABGB also nabbed a bronze medal for the Hell Yes Helles in the Munich-style Helles category.

Congrats @theabgb Bronze for Hell Yes before they could even sit down! #gabf #gabfawards #gabf2016

� TX Craft Brewers (@TXCraftBrewers) October 8, 2016

Good things come in threes: the ABGB earned an even bigger honor at GABF later � the Large Brewpub of the Year Award. Receiving that prize was a first for the ABGB and for Texas brewers in general, too.

And getting it, on top of two medals, was far beyond anything that the ABGB�s brewers, Amos Lowe, Kim Mizner and Brian �Swifty� Peters, could have imagined.

�Winning either a pils or a helles medal would have made our year,� Peters said. �Winning both is a dream come true. Amos, Kim and I have been working towards this since we opened, and all of the hard work paid off with being awarded large brewpub of the year. You don�t allow yourself to ever think that you might win it. But now it�s ours and we did it with lagers! I can�t stop smiling.�

Lager beers are the ABGB�s specialty, as I noted in this recent profile I wrote about the brewpub in celebration of its three year anniversary. The ABGB�s brewers don�t just love making them � they are also very good at it.

�People bash lagers because they�re so subtle in flavor. Like the helles we have,� Peters said in the story. �They bash the beers because they can�t taste the flavors. But lagers are so precise and so clean.�

Texas breweries won a total of 12 awards at this year�s GABF, the 30th annual version of the festival. Though we�ve gotten less of a medal count than in the past two years, it�s worth remembering that competition was tougher than ever. On average, the Brewers Association noted, 75 beers were entered in each category, �making the 2016 Great American Beer Festival competition the most competitive ever.�

Here�s the list of winners:

The ABGB�s Industry Pilsner � gold in German Pilsner category The ABGB�s Hell Yes Helles � bronze in Munich-style Helles Adelbert�s Brewery�s Flyin� Monks � bronze in Belgian-style Dubbel or Quad Community Beer Co.�s Witbier � bronze in Belgian-style Witbier Grapevine Brewery�s Sir William English Brown Ale � silver in English-style Brown Independence Brewing�s Cucumber RedBud � bronze in Field Beer Nine Band Brewing�s Toad Choker Barleywine � bronze in Barleywine Panther Brewing and Clifton Ellis� Just Rye�te � gold in pro-am competition Real Ale Brewing�s Real Heavy � gold in Scotch Ale Revolver Brewing�s Anodyne Wheat Wine � gold in Other Strong Beer Solid Rock Brewing�s Big Drought Stout � gold in Classic Irish Dry Stout ]]