The first national brewing competition of the year is in the books as the Best of Craft Beer Awards were announced Monday in Bend, Oregon. Once again, New Mexico breweries cleaned up, with five splitting up 12 medals between them, including three gold medals.

Leading the pack was Ex Novo Brewing with four medals, while Quarter Celtic Brewpub and Flix Brewhouse earned three medals apiece. Farmington’s Lauter Haus Brewing and Three Rivers Brewery each took home one medal.

Ex Novo’s top beer was The Most Interesting Lager in the World, which picked up gold in the Australasian, Latin American or Tropical-Style Light Lager. Two silvers were awarded to Easy Come, Easy Go in Bohemian-Style Pilsner, and Sons of Scotland in Scotch Ale or Wee Heavy. The final medal was a bronze for Cactus Wins the Lottery in Berliner-Style Weisse. Both Most Interesting and Cactus are year-round beers available on tap and in six-pack cans. Easy Come is currently available on tap, and hopefully lead brewer Dan Cavin will make some more of that tasty Sons of Scotland soon, as it was his recipe.

Flix’s Will Moorman brought home three medals with three of his seasonals. At our last check, two were still available on tap in Darth Malt, which got silver for Baltic-Style Porter, and Dr. Brownstone, which also picked up a silver for English-Style Dark Mild Ale. The gold medal winner was for Das Umlaut Oktoberfest (you can guess the category).

Quarter Celtic took three medals with two regulars and one seasonal. Crimson Lass picked up gold in the Irish-Style Red Ale and Pedro O’Flanagan’s Mexican Lager took bronze in Australasian, Latin American or Tropical-Style Light Lager, and those are available all year. The Dark Pedro snagged silver in the Other Lager category, and it is currently on tap.

Finally, the Farmington duo of Lauter Haus and Three Rivers both took bronzes. The former’s Sgt. Lauter was awarded in the Munich-Style Helles category, while the latter’s Common was awarded in the Other Historical Beer Styles category.

A big congratulations to all the winners. We look forward to plenty of additional hardware coming back to New Mexico throughout 2020.

Cheers!

— Stoutmeister