You might not think about it on a regular basis, but medals can be extremely helpful to breweries, especially breweries like Brink that are just getting their feet wet. It’s harder and harder to let people not only know that you’re here, but that your beer is worth a drinker skipping an evening at their “regular place” to come to some new place in a different part of town.

The brewery is rightfully proud, to receive notice that they won a couple of medals at the 2017 Denver International Beer Competition. They submitted two beers to the competition, which is in its 8th year, and brought home two medals!

If you’re still one of those folks who has yet to venture out to College Hill to see what Brink is all about, this might just be the reason that you need to justify the trip… right?

The Bulldog

I snagged some of this Old Ale when I was out at Brink last for the live episode of Cincy Brewcast that we did. It’s fantastic, big, sweet and malty (at 9.2% ABV), this beer begs for some time in a barrel. It’s a beer that you can sip on all night and be plenty happy doing it!

The Bulldog walked away from the Denver International Beer Competition with a Silver Medal.

Moozie

I haven’t gotten a chance to try this one yet, but the beer has some great ratings on Untappd (if you trust that sort of thing). It’s a 6% ABV Milk Stout, and since it’s currently on tap at the brewery – I think a visit might be in order this week to give it a try!

Moozie won a Bronze Medal in the compeition.

Why Is This Really Important?

For a brewery like Brink, awards like this are important for a few different reasons. The easiest for us to see is that is helps people around town, and around the region hear about a brewery that they might not have, otherwise. The more name recognition, the better.

But look into this from a different level, too. I reached out to the brewery to talk to them a little bit, and they emphasized one thing, quality. The let me know that they were using the opportunities that competitions bring as a method to receive valuable feedback on what they are doing from unbiased, trained judges. The scoring notes that the brewery receives from a competition seems to be as important as anything else to Brink. They are a brewery that focuses hard onto being true to style, and with this comes the challenges that style guidelines will bring. For this reason alone, entering a competition and getting feedback is even more important than the validation that a couple of medals bring.

If you didn’t know, I try to keep an updated running list of all the brewery medals around town from current and past breweries. Hit up the list and have a look-see at what makes this brewing community so strong – all our award winning beers, breweries, and brewers.