Great Divide Wins Medal at 2008 Great American Beer Festival

(Denver, CO) – Great Divide Brewing Company picked up another medal at the Great American Beer Festival (GABF) awards ceremony held on Saturday, October 11, in Denver, CO.

Yeti Imperial Stout, won a bronze medal in the Imperial Stout category. Yeti (9.5% alcohol by volume) is an onslaught of the senses. It starts with big, roasty malt flavor that gives way to rich caramel and toffee notes. Yeti gets its bold hop character from an enormous quantity of American hops.

Yeti Imperial Stout is a repeat winner at GABF, having also won a silver medal at the 2005 festival. This medal brings Great Divide’s GABF totals to an impressive 13 medals.

“It's extremely rewarding for each of us at the brewery when we win a GABF medal,” says Brian Dunn, founder of Great Divide. “The awards are recognition that we're brewing some of the highest quality beers in the US, they make us all very proud. We’ve had quite a few celebratory beers around here the past couple days.”

That Yeti has won medals in previous years is especially satisfying to Dunn and his staff. “This repeat medal is proof of the consistent quality of our beers,” Dunn says. “They say great things about our brewing methods, our focus, and the caliber of our staff.”

There were 472 breweries participating in this year’s GABF competition, with a total of 2,902 beers judged. Colorado breweries won 23 of this year’s GABF medals, get details at http://www.beertown.org/events/gabf/pdf/winners/gabf08_winners.pdf . For details on all of Great Divide’s beers visit www.greatdivide.com.

Great Divide is one of the most decorated microbreweries in the US. The brewery has seven placements in the current Best of Beer Advocate “Top Beers” rankings. Three Great Divide beers were chosen for Ratebeer.com’s 2007 “The Best Beers in the World” list, which ranked the globe’s top 100 beers.

Great Divide is ranked 14th in Ratebeer.com’s 2008 “The Best Brewers in the World” rankings (of the top 100 breweries) and the brewery has won 13 medals at the Great American Beer Festival, held each year in Denver, Colorado.

In 2003, the brewery was one of craft beer’s first to defy the mainstream and expand its focus to bigger, more assertive beers that reflected the original spirit of the company. The move to more challenging beers has helped Great Divide grow to 8,760 barrels of beer production in 2007.

In 1994, Great Divide set up shop in an abandoned dairy/yogurt plant on the north edge of downtown Denver. The company has expanded several times at that location. The Great Divide Tap Room is a hit with local beer lovers and Denver visitors.