Great American Beer Fest: South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota Medalists
It was a banner year for Tri-State area brews at the just-completed 2024 Great American Beer Festival in Denver.
Eight different Iowa, Minnesota, and South Dakota breweries emerged with medals at the event, which saw more than 9,200 entries from all 50 states, competing in a number of different categories.
Iowa beers were the big winners locally with four medals, including a gold:
JUICY OR HAZY PALE ALE
- GOLD: Big Grove Brewery & Taproom (Solon) - Easy Eddy
EXPERIMENTAL IPA
- SILVER: SingleSpeed Brewing Company (Waterloo) - Lavender Haze
TANNIC CIDER
- SILVER: Paha Cider Company (Waverly) - Cedar Valley Blend
HISTORICAL BEER
- SILVER: Pivo Brewery (Calmar) - Decorah Nordic Gruit
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Not to be outdone, Minnesota beers came home with a trio of medals, including two golds:
GERMAN-STYLE PILSNER
- GOLD: Arbeiter Brewing Co. (Minneapolis) - HaHa Pils.
GERMAN-STYLE EISBOCK
- GOLD: Northbound Smokehouse Brewpub (Minneapolis)
IRISH-STYLE RED ALE
- BRONZE: Ursa Minor Brewing (Duluth) - Equanimity
South Dakota's lone medal at the event was a bronze:
EXPERIMENTAL IPA
- BRONZE: Lost Cabin Beer Company (Rapid City) - East Gruesome
LOOK: Best Beers From Every State
To find the best beer in each state and Washington D.C., Stacker analyzed January 2020 data from BeerAdvocate, a website that gathers user scores for beer in real-time. BeerAdvocate makes its determinations by compiling consumer ratings for all 50 states and Washington D.C. and applying a weighted rank to each. The weighted rank pulls the beer toward the list's average based on the number of ratings it has and aims to allow lesser-known beers to increase in rank. Only beers with at least 10 rankings to be considered; we took it a step further to only include beers with at least 100 user rankings in our gallery. Keep reading to find out what the best beer is in each of the 50 states and Washington D.C.
Gallery Credit: Angela Underwood
LOOK: Breweries with the Most Highly Ranked Beers in Minnesota
Stacker compiled a list of the breweries with the most highly ranked beers Minnesota from BeerAdvocate.
Gallery Credit: Stacker
LOOK: Do You Know the Signature Dish in Each State?
Stacker compiled a list of the signature dishes in each U.S. state, consulting local newspapers, histories, and recipe collections.
Gallery Credit: Stacker
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