Last night the winners of the 2023 Alberta Beer Awards were announced. The list of winners includes breweries who have become very accustomed to the medal podium and some impressive accomplishments by some newbies to the Alberta beer scene.

The sixth edition of Alberta’s premiere commercial beer competition was the largest one yet, with 517 entries from 79 breweries. Judging took place in late August at Olds College using blind judging methods and certified and experienced beer judges. 95 medals were awarded across 32 beer categories (one category did not award a bronze). There were also medals for craft soda/lemonade and hard seltzer/ready-to-drink as exhibition categories.

The big winner was Calgary’s The Establishment Brewing Company, who won both Brewery of the Year on the strength of three gold medals and Best of Show, with Left My Wallet in El Segundo, a Lichtenhainer with pineapple (a rare historical German style). This is their second Alberta Brewery of the Year title (the first was 2021). They also won Canadian Brewery of the Year in 2021.

New Brewery of the Year this year went to Calgary’s Stonyslope Brewing, who picked up three medals in their first outing (one of each colour). Close behind them was Sherwood Park newcomer Manual Labour Brewing who scooped up a gold and a silver. To be eligible for New Brewery of the Year, the brewery must have opened after January 1, 2022 and not previously submitted entries to the ABAs.

Silver in Best of Show went to Blindman Brewing’s Cascadian Double IPA while Bronze went to Two Pillar Brewing for their Belgian Blonde. Here is the complete list of 2023 winners.

I think the thing that strikes me the most about this year’s winners is how the medals were spread out across breweries and throughout the province. In total 46 different breweries picked up medals, with an impressive 25 winning multiple medals. The names are a fascinating mixture of familiar and new. The breweries that consistently top the podium did so once again, including ‘88 Brewing, Blind Enthusiasm, Blindman, Brewsters, Cabin, Campio, Medicine Hat, Sea Change and, of course, The Establishment. But the list of multiple winners also contains some fresh faces, including Ale Architect, Cold Lake, Nine in a Line, Rival Trade, Two Pillars and Wild Winds.

There can be no denying Calgary’s dominance in this year’s awards. Calgary breweries picked up 40 medals, including 13 gold, a full 42% of all the medals handed out. Edmonton breweries won 23 (24%), Central and Southern Alberta breweries picked up 12 each and Northern Alberta received 8. In part this is due to the sheer number of breweries located in Calgary, but it is impressive nonetheless.

Scanning the winners list I was struck at the number of medal winners from little-known or tucked-out-of-the-way breweries. Locations included Vulcan (Nine in a Line, 2 medals), Cold Lake (Cold Lake, 4 medals), Rocky Mountain House (Rival Trade, 3 medals), Wainwright (Moonlight Bay, 1 medal), Fort McLeod (Stronghold, one medal), and Lundbreck (Oldman River, one medal). Locals may be familiar with these breweries, but none have provincial reach like many of the familiar names on the list. I need to add some of these places to my must-see list.

If we compare the 2023 winners list to previous years, there are a number of breweries that appear over and over again (here is 2022 and 2021 for comparison). This is not surprising. I see that as an indicator that these breweries have achieved a level of consistency in the production of their products. Each year their beer is likely to be judged by different judging panels and is pitted against new entrants, yet the quality of their beer shines through year after year. That is a testament to the skill of their brewers.

It is also a fun game to look at which beer have won multiple times over the years. Looking at the lists over the years, it is very clear that it is very hard for a specific beer to repeat as a medalist, although there are quite a number that achieve the feat. Only one beer – and it required two different versions – can claim to have won a medal in every single Alberta Beer Awards. Tool Shed’s Zero Red Rage won gold in the new no alcohol category, meaning between it and its sister (mother?) beer Red Rage, a version of that beer has won a medal six years in a row. Also noteworthy is that Cabin’s Sunshine Rain has won a medal in four of the last five ABAs (Cabin was not open for the first year of the awards) in the hyper-competitive IPA category.

Finally I should note for the purposes of transparency that the ABA rules permit breweries who operate more than one brewery to submit entries under the name of each of their breweries. For example the Bear Hill group of brewpubs submit entries separately for each of their locations (Jasper, Banff Avenue, Last Best and Campio). This year Blind Enthusiasm entered separately for its Market location (housed in the restaurant Biera) and the Monolith, which specializes in mixed fermentation and spontaneously fermented beer. The Monolith won four of the six medals in the mixed ferment categories, including sweeping the non-fruited category. The Market location won an additional three medals, but because they entered them as different breweries, they were counted separately for the purposes of Brewery of the Year.

The 2023 edition of the Alberta Beer Awards has me feeling bullish about the Alberta craft beer industry, at least in terms of quality. Every year the competition gets stiffer, with excellent beer missing out on the podium because there are just that many top notch beer in the category. I can only hope next year it gets even harder to win a medal. Keep it up brewers!