The Great American Beer Festival’s annual awards ceremony was rolling along this past Sunday, but through 57 categories, no brewery from New Mexico heard their name called up to get a medal.
That all changed in the blink of an eye when not one local brewery, but two heard their names called back-to-back in the German-style Dunkel category, No. 58 on the list but No. 1 in their hearts.
This week, I caught up with the Boxing Bear and Quarter Celtic brewing teams to talk about their respective bronze and silver medals for their delicious dunkels.
Boxing Bear head brewer Eddie Dominguez took us through the moment at Levitt Pavilion, the new outdoor home of GABF in Denver.
“So it was really funny, me and (Rob) Palmer were sitting in the little grass area in front of the stage, right?” Dominguez said. “And, you know, we were kind of bumming out because a couple of the categories had gone through and we hadn’t heard anything, and so you know you’re in that familiar, that old familiar feeling of like, ‘Dang! Where are we gonna get called?’
“And, we turn to kind of say something to each other and then we hear Boxing Bear, and we look at the screen, and we’re like, ‘Dunkel!’ We both stand up and we’re around, you know, the (Ex) Novo crew, we’re around the (New Mexico) Brewers Guild folk, and you know, we’re cheering, and then we hear Quarter Celtic. We’re like, ‘Double Dunkel!’”
Since Quarter Celtic was one of the four New Mexico breweries pouring at the event, none of their staff could hear the announcement.
“The poor QC guys were up at the booth still, still pouring, you know, and so you know I’m calling Keegan (McKeown) and Palmer’s calling Brady (McKeown), and we’re like, we won, we won!” Dominguez said. “And, it was Ror (McKeown) who was like walking back from getting food or something. And, he was like, yeah, I spilled everything all over me when I heard Quarter Celtic, and I ran to the booth, and there was just this sign that said, ‘BRB, going to get our GABF medal.’
“So they were down after and you know, it was just really cool, you know, we’re both in line and Ebbie (Edmonston) runs up with the (New Mexico) flag to give to us and to take that picture and I was like, oh we have the only flag so we lingered up there on the stage a little bit awkwardly, until we could hand them the flag.”
“It was great,” said Brady McKeown, brewmaster and co-owner of Quarter Celtic. “Yeah, I mean, especially when Rob and Eddie are great guys. We had actually just done a collab — which hasn’t been released yet — with them and entered it in that competition. And so, of course, we were all planning on going up together. Anyway, that (medal) didn’t happen, but we still went up together. So yeah, it was great.”
Dominguez explained that the Quarter Celtic team bought Palmer a ticket first, and in turn Palmer bought Dominguez a ticket so he was not the sole representative for Boxing Bear.
“Yeah, we’ve had good luck with Rob,” said Ror McKeown, Brady’s brother and co-owner, harkening back to a past GABF bronze medal for the collaboration Mocha Hipster Bomb. “We also won at the North American Beer Awards for ‘A Beer That Tastes Like Beer,” with him, as well. That was fun.”
Palmer had his own brewery back then before it closed and he joined Boxing Bear. It appears the luck carried over, and as far as Boxing Bear director of brewing operations Dylan Davis is concerned, it will have to continue.
“So now, Brady has to buy us tickets every year for GABF,” Davis said with a smile. “It’s good luck.”
It was the first medal in that category for either brewery, as Quarter Celtic’s Step Drunkle is brand new and Boxing Bear’s Black Mesa Dunkel has only been around for about two or three runs.
As for what inspired the Step Drunkle, which has been freshly tapped at Quarter Celtic this week, Brady McKeown said it had partly to do with an opening on the seasonal/specialty brewing schedule, partly to do with what grains were available, and partly to do with a little bit of GABF strategy.
“We had some extra room (on the brewing schedule),” Brady McKeown said. “So we looked at last year’s winners, looked for smaller (entry) categories. I mean, that’s what a lot of people do.”
Of course, other brewers saw that as well, and the category ended up being much bigger this year than 2025. Still, the beer clicked with the judges.
“European/German-style beers are kind of our thing,” Ror McKeown said.
“But yeah, we just looked at what could be produced with our house yeast,” Brady McKeown added. “And, you know, what else we could do that isn’t something that we always do? And, that’s how we do most of our specials anyway.”
This also produced a bit of a proud papa moment for Ror McKeown, as his son Keegan has taken over as head brewer under his uncle Brady’s watchful eye.
“So, we’ve got a good teacher, some great students, and QC just keeps rolling,” Ror said.
As for the Boxing Bear team, they felt that one word summed up earning a bronze medal.
“What was the word Kevin? Validating?” Dominguez asked of Boxing Bear’s co-owner.
“Validating,” Kevin Davis replied.
“It was validating because we knew that the dunkel was a damn good beer,” Dominguez added.
“A damn good beer,” Kevin Davis echoed.
“Emphasis on damn good,” Dylan Davis added.
“You know, just getting a medal for that, it felt it felt really good,” Dominguez concluded. “It felt really validating.”
OK, fellas, we get it. Kevin Davis explained things a little further.
“Last year, we got our comments back and they said you were right on the cusp of getting bronze, but your beer was a little too dark for style,” he said. “And so, we lightened it up a little bit, and then I guess the (judge) was telling us the truth.”
It was also, pardon the overused phrase, a bit of a dream come true for Dylan Davis.
“To go double on the validating, too, it feels good because — I mean any medal you win at GABF is obviously a huge honor — but this was with a German lager category, which has always been like a personal dream of mine,” he said. “So for one of our recipes, you know, we’ve won with our (Chocolate Milk) Stout, we’ve gotten a (Session) IPA medal. You know, we’ve gotten the medal with The Red Glove at GABF. But, winning with the German lager is an awesome, awesome experience that I feel like we worked really hard to achieve this year.”
Much like Quarter Celtic, the Boxing Bear team can also take pride in having Black Mesa Dunkel on tap and in cans for customers to enjoy right now.
“Oh, it’s good that you say that, because we already knew we were gonna try to keep Dunkel on as a rotating seasonal kind of permanently, just because this is a style that we all really love, too, and we love drinking,” Dylan Davis said. “So, you know, even had it not won a medal, we’d be brewing it a lot anyway. But yeah, we feel like we deserved it, for sure.”
There were plenty of post-fest shenanigans to be had by both breweries, too, but those stories will have to wait until another day. Also, coming soon is a special collaboration beer between Boxing Bear and Quarter Celtic that they coincidentally brewed just before they went to Denver. We’ll have more on that one soon.
A huge thanks to Brady, Ror, Keegan, and Tristan at Quarter Celtic, and Eddie, Dylan, Kevin, and Palmer (who was out fixing a co-worker’s truck and skipping the interview, because that’s just how good of a dude that Rob is) at Boxing Bear. Cheers to their award-winning beers, the cool new GABF medal tap handles that now go with them, and definitely props to having both on tap for everyone to enjoy and compare.
Keep supporting local!
— Stoutmeister
