Craft Coast Wins Brewery of the Year at a Smaller GABF

Craft Coast won GABF Brewery of the Year in the 1,001-2,000 barrel class on Oct. 11. The North County taco brewpub grabbed two golds, and San Diego County independents finished with 13 medals, seven of them gold, the most local golds since 2021.

Those medals were read on the lawn at Levitt Pavilion in Denver’s Ruby Hill, where the Great American Beer Festival, held since 1982, ran two days instead of three after years of falling ticket sales.

The Festival That Fit on a Lawn

The Brewers Association chose in January to move the festival outdoors after more than two decades at the Colorado Convention Center. Ann Obenchain, the association’s vice president of marketing and communications, called the shift an evolution and said the group had listened to attendees who wanted a gathering that felt more like Colorado than a trade hall.

Sessions ran noon to 4 p.m. on Oct. 10 and Oct. 11. Tickets started at $60, or $66.53 with fees, down from $85 to $95 in 2025. Organizers capped the weekend at about 15,000 tickets, including staff, against a pre-pandemic peak above 60,000. About 207 breweries poured, down from more than 800 at that peak. Saturday and the two-day pass sold out before the gates opened.

The competition still ran on a national scale even as the public party shrank. Awards went on stage at 12:15 p.m. Mountain Time on Sunday, the first year every festival ticket holder could watch the ceremony live instead of being sent to a side auditorium.

HOW GABF SHRANK IN 2026

1. January 27, 2026: The Brewers Association announces Levitt Pavilion and a two-day schedule, with tickets from $60.
2. October 5-8, 2026: Judges score beers and ciders ahead of the public weekend.
3. October 10-11, 2026: The festival runs noon to 4 p.m. on the Ruby Hill lawn.
4. October 11, 2026: Winners are named at 12:15 p.m. Mountain Time on the Levitt stage.

Chris Williams, the association’s competition director, said the entries showed how far American brewing and cidermaking have come, and that new styles such as rice lager, hop water, and a one-time craft malt category gave producers fresh ground. The public festival got smaller. The blind tasting did not.

GABF 2026 IN NUMBERS

• The field: 7,267 beers and ciders from 1,300 producers in 49 states, plus Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.
• The panel: 225 judges and more than 200 volunteers, with 54 collaboration beers and 30 Pro-Am entries in the mix.
• The hardware: 336 medals to 243 breweries and cideries, about 4.6 percent of what was poured for the judges.
• The new faces: 125 first-time entrants and 12 first-time winners.

Six style categories drew 150 beers or more. The average category still held 67. For U.S. brewers, a medal here still outranks the World Beer Cup as the brag that sells beer at home.

Craft Coast Won Brewery of the Year Without Chasing Store Shelves

The official sheet lists Craft Coast in Oceanside, the 10-barrel brewpub Blake Masoner opened in August 2020 with longtime friends Brian Gillen and Lars Erickson. The company’s headquarters and 15-barrel kit sit in San Marcos, in the old Rip Current plant they took over in April 2024. Masoner is cofounder and head brewer. Almost none of the beer leaves the rooms.

They brewed about 1,200 barrels in 2024 and planned to hit 2,000 in 2025, which puts them at the top of the 1,001-2,000 barrel Brewery of the Year band. Agua Baja, the pale Mexican-style lager, accounts for nearly 40 percent of what they make. Oscura is the dark turn on that beer, and it took gold in International Dark Lager against 71 entries. Beería, the English-style brown, took gold against 43. California claimed three of the eight size-class titles. Craft Coast was the smallest of those three.

Masoner has said the company never wanted the mass-production game. Customers drink the beer on draft or walk out with a crowler. When people talk about craft beer being down, he points at the grocery aisle, not the bar.

Overall, craft might be down, but that could just be on the shelf. People are still super-stoked to go drink beer with their friends.

Blake Masoner, cofounder and head brewer, Craft Coast

That is the wager the festival itself just made, in a different costume. GABF left a hall built for 60,000 people and bet that a tighter outdoor session, cheaper tickets, and brewery staff at the booths would feel better than a thinning crowd in a convention center. Craft Coast bet on tacos, a 15-barrel kit, and beer that never needed a six-pack photo. Both bets were called on the same lawn.

Seven San Diego Golds Landed on a Sunday Stage

Local independents have lived in a 12-to-18 medal band for a decade. They took 12 in each of the past two competitions, figures that rose to 18 and 14 in 2025 and 2024 once satellite plants and out-of-town companies with San Diego taprooms were folded in. The raw local counts further back were 18 in 2023, 15 in 2022, 18 in 2021, 13 in 2020, 18 in 2019, 16 in 2018, 14 in 2017, 18 in 2016, and 20 in 2015. Thirteen medals in 2026 sits in that range. The golds do not.

Seven golds is the local high since 2021. Craft Coast, East Village Brewing, and Ketch Brewing each took two. Ketch added a bronze for Day Cruise in New Zealand-style Pale Ale, a 39-entry category, and finished as the county’s biggest winner by medal count with three. Stone Brewing took a gold and a silver from its Paso Robles plant, in American or Export Stout (41 entries) and American Brown Ale (45), styles the company has mined for years.

East Village swept the coffee board: Stay Calm won Coffee Beer (40 entries) and Beatnik won Coffee Stout or Porter (53). The Lost Abbey’s Inferno took Other Strong Beer, a 24-entry category, for Vista. On the official sheet, 10 Barrel’s San Diego brewery also won gold for Silent G in German-style Koelsch, a 112-entry field; that beer sits outside the independent local tally of 13.

Who Took Medals From San Diego County?

San Diego County independents won 13 medals, seven gold, five silver, and one bronze. Orange County’s Green Cheek, which runs an Oceanside brewpub, added a gold and two bronzes, which is how some local counts reach 16. The full national sheet is on the official 2026 winners list.

SAN DIEGO MEDALS AT GABF 2026

Asterisks mark Green Cheek beers brewed in Orange County. Puesto Negra’s silver sat directly under Oscura in the same 71-beer dark-lager stack, a one-two for San Diego in a style the county used to treat as a side project. Pizza Port’s OATS is a silver, not a bronze, in Sweet Stout or Cream Stout.

Silver in the 277-Beer West Coast IPA Pile

West Coast-style India Pale Ale was the most entered category of the competition, 277 beers, and the one San Diego still treats as home turf. TapRoom Beer Co. took silver with Born Hoppy. Gold went to Before & After Science from Human People Beer in Seattle. Bronze went to pFriem Family Brewers in Hood River, Ore.

A silver in a field that large is the medal that travels. It is also a reminder that the hop pile is no longer a Southern California closed shop. The next five deepest categories tell the same story: hazy IPA is right behind, and the German lager aisle is packed.

THE SIX DEEPEST BEER CATEGORIES

• West Coast-style IPA: 277 entries; silver to TapRoom’s Born Hoppy.
• Juicy or Hazy IPA: 260 entries; gold to Bend Brewing’s Because Science.
• German-style Maerzen: 184 entries.
• American IPA: 165 entries; gold to Breakside IPA.
• German-style Pilsener: 161 entries.
• Dortmunder or German-style Festbier: 161 entries.

North Park’s other GABF medal sat in a different hop bin. NPBC10 Hazy Triple IPA, the 10-year anniversary beer, took silver in Juicy or Hazy Imperial IPA against 107 entries. The brewery’s louder Denver win came two days earlier, and it was not a GABF medal at all.

North Park’s First Alpha King After 10 Years

The Alpha King Challenge rules cap the contest at 165 beers, one per company, with no collaborations, and judge them for hop punch that still drinks clean. The 2026 U.S. round was dated Oct. 9. North Park took first with Freshie Fresh, a 7.2% West Coast IPA built on Mosaic, Mosaic HyperBoost, Mosaic Cryo, and Mosaic Cryo Fresh at the equivalent of seven pounds per barrel.

It was the first time in a decade of entering that North Park placed in the top 25. Freshie Fresh is the wet-hop idea without the harvest clock: four forms of one hop, packed in, meant to be drunk young. The GABF silver for the anniversary hazy triple is the cellar-able trophy. The Alpha King crown is the one hop growers notice.

The Association Made the Medals Larger This Year

The Brewers Association, which represents more than 9,300 small and independent American brewers, redesigned the metal itself. Winners left the stage with a larger medal and new ribbon, plus tap handles that match the new face, shelf talkers, cooler clings, and social badges. Luke Trauwein, the association’s creative director, said the point was to make the award readable on a six-pack and on a tap list, not only in a photo from Denver.

A GABF medal has always been hard to earn. Brewers enter against thousands of beers from across the country, and every one is judged blind by professionals who know exactly what they’re looking for. The medal should reflect that.

Chris Williams, competition director, Brewers Association

That is a sales kit for a category that has been slipping on store shelves. Craft Coast already sells almost every barrel in the room. The new tap handles will hang in Oceanside and San Marcos, where the brown ale and the dark lager were going to be poured anyway. The lawn in Ruby Hill is a smaller stage than the old hall. The beers that won on Oct. 11 did not need a bigger one.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who Won GABF 2026 Brewery of the Year in the 1,001-2,000 Barrel Class?

Craft Coast, listed on the official sheet in Oceanside, Calif., with the Craft Coast Brew Team named as brewer of the year. The other California size-class winners were Morgan Territory Brewing of Tracy in the 2,001-5,000 barrel band and Fieldwork Brewing of Berkeley in the 5,001-15,000 band. Goose Island Beer Co. of Chicago won the over-100,000 barrel title.

How Many Beers Were Entered in the 2026 West Coast IPA Category?

277, the most of any category, sponsored by Wyeast. Gold went to Before & After Science from Human People Beer of Seattle, and bronze went to Mosaic + Krush Cryo West Coast IPA from pFriem Family Brewers of Hood River, Ore., with TapRoom’s Born Hoppy in between.

When Did the Great American Beer Festival First Move Outdoors?

The Brewers Association announced the Levitt Pavilion plan on Jan. 27, 2026, for sessions from noon to 4 p.m. on Oct. 10 and 11. Levitt Pavilion is a nonprofit music venue in Denver’s Ruby Hill neighborhood, and tickets were listed from $60.

What Is the Alpha King Challenge?

A hop-forward contest run with Yakima Chief Hops, limited to 165 entries, one beer per company, with no collaborations. The 2026 U.S. round was dated Oct. 9, and the champion is traditionally named at 4:20 p.m. North Park’s Freshie Fresh was the 2026 winner.

How Many Medals Were Awarded at GABF 2026?

336 medals went to 243 breweries and cideries, with 12 first-time winners among 125 first-time entrants. That is a medal rate of about 4.6 percent on 7,267 entries.