The San Diego International Beer Festival is coming up June 17-19 but the results from the competition are in and San Diego straight up kicked ass! In total, SD brought home 59 medals out of 159 total medals. I got to judge one round of the contest and it was fun and challenging.



Yes, if you math that, we were awarded 37% of the medals of this competition. That’s freaking unstoppable dominance if you ask me. Of those 59 medals, 7 were awarded to non-craft producers, [5 to Ballast Point (including gold for Three Sheets), 2 to Saint Archer (including gold for Scottish Ale)], and 3 medals for mead – Breakwater got a gold for Rasbiscus Mead and Golden Mead picked up a silver and a bronze. Side note: in the results, Washington Gold Cider was listed as being from San Diego, I did not count them in the medal counts as they are from Washington (at least as far as I can tell).

Now for the breakdown of how our hometown, independent breweries did, we’re jumping in with the big guns, the golds:

AleSmith with AleSmith Nut Brown – Alpine Beer Co with Mandarin Nectar – Aztec Brewing with Funk # Four – Belching Beaver – Viva La Beaver – Division 23 with Sour Superintendent – Intergalactic with Shut up Wesley Wheat – Mike Hess with Claritas – Monkey Paw with Might Joe Young – Mother Earth with Mother Earth ESB – New English with Pure & Simple IPA & Pacific Storm Stout – Nickel with Constantine’s Russian Imperial Stout – Pizza Port Bressi with Shark Bite Red – Pizza Port Carlsbad with Short Schwartz – Port Brewing with Dawn Patrol Dark – Rip Current with Breakline Bock & Black Lagoon Scottish Strong – San Diego Brewing Co with San Diego IPA – Societe with The Coachman – Toolbox with Bramble On Rose

The winners of silver are:

AleSmith with Horny Devil & Olde Ale – Amplified Ale Works with Whammy Bar Wheat & Sell Out – Bagby Beer co with Sweet Ride – Green Flash with Sea to Sea – Intergalactic with Red Planet Rye – Karl Strauss with Big Barrel IIPA – Pizza Port OB with Kung Fu Elvis – Pizza Port Carlsbad with Birddog Barleywine – San Diego Brewing with San Diego Gold – The Lost Abbey with Serpent’s Stout

In bronze land we have:

Abnormal Beer Co with Year One IIPA – AleSmith with Old Numbskull – Barrel Harbor with Barrel Harbor Brown Ale – Benchmark Brewing with Voyager – Dos Desperados with Scotch Bonnet Imperial Stout – Green Flash with Passion Fruit Kicker – Ironfire with Last Rites – Karl Strauss with Mosaic Session IPA – Nickel Beer with Passion Fruit Nectar IPA Braggot – O’Sullivan Brothers with Catholic Guilt – Port Brewing with Glenn’s Payne in the Ass IPA & Shark Attack – San Diego Brewing with Pale in Drop D – Societe with The Thief

AleSmith was also named as the 2016 Champion Brewery, that’s two years in a row for the Miramar powerhouse if you’re keeping track!

Some other interesting things I noticed while going through the results:

We had 4 classes that as a city we swept – Specialty beer (Alpine, Duckfoot, Ballast) – Session Beer (Societe, Green Flash, Karl Strauss) – Imperial Stout (Nickel, Lost Abbey, Pizza Port Carlsbad) – Spiced and Specialty Mead (Breakwater, Golden coast, Nickel)

Pizza Port had the most SD medals if you count them as one entity (6) and 8 if you include San Clemente; that tied Figueroa Mountain’s 8 medals as the most in the festival.

Congratulations to everyone that grabbed a medal, especially for those that this was their first medal! Keep kicking ass and keeping my glass full of award winning, quality, craft beer!