The Great American Beer Festival (GABF) just wrapped up its latest competition on Saturday. Nearly 300 medals were handed out for beers in 98 styles (!), which means the exclusivity of medaling has become somewhat diluted. It is no longer uncommon to walk into a brewery and see medals hanging from the wall--after all, more than 2,500 have been handed out over the past decade. In the hours since the winners have been announced, my email account has filled up with breweries announcing their wins--and many of those breweries will go on to tout wins in promotional material, on websites, and in some cases on labels.

It's expensive to enter the contest, winning is a crapshoot, and anyway, there are so many medals that a win is likely to get lost in the shuffle. Most consumers don't track who wins these things, and if they learn a brewery has won an award, probably don't care. All of which raises an interesting question. Why bother?

I reached out to six people this week and asked them exactly that. More than 2,000 breweries entered nearly 8,000 beers this year, so clearly it does matter. It turns out the reasons breweries compete have a lot less to do with the promotional possibilities of a win. In fact, just entering offers valuable experiences and information. What follows are very lightly-edited responses from:

Brewmaster Matt Brynildson of Firestone-Walker , perennial winners and multiple winner of brewery of the year;

, perennial winners and multiple winner of brewery of the year; Founder Josh Pfriem of pFriem Family Brewers , routinely cited as one of Oregon's best breweries, shut out of the awards this year;

, routinely cited as one of Oregon's best breweries, shut out of the awards this year; Brewmaster Phil Leinhart of Ommegang , another multiple-award winner;

, another multiple-award winner; Founder and Brewer Dave Marliave of Flat Tail , a small brewery in Corvallis, OR that has won medals in the past and took home gold this year in American Sour;

, a small brewery in Corvallis, OR that has won medals in the past and took home gold this year in American Sour; Gary Fish, founder of Deschutes , shut out this year, but winner of dozens of medals over the years; and

, shut out this year, but winner of dozens of medals over the years; and Alan Taylor of Zoiglhaus, a two-year-old brewery in Portland. Alan is a German-trained brewer whose Northern German pilsner took gold this year.



The Promotional Benefit of a Medal

My first question was whether GABF medals are valuable in marketing. Even if a brewery does have success, is it something they can use to boost sales? Generally speaking, most of the breweries I spoke to thought the marketing benefit was fairly low. Even where it offered some potential, it was limited to specific cases. Gary Fish nicely sums up the prevailing view:

"Over the years, we have won our fair share of GABF hardware [and] we have enjoyed every one. We’ve rarely used these awards for marketing purposes, although we have done it. We enjoy our victories like everyone else, but what it does for sales? Who knows. It doesn’t hurt, but likely helps little in the grand scheme of things."