I’m a couple days late in getting this out there, but this weekend ended up being a really great showing for a few of our local breweries down in Lexington at the Commonwealth Cup at Alltech.  The yearly competition is massive, and you’ve never been to the beer festival that comes along with it, after going for the first time this year I can tell you that it’s worth a visit or two.  It’s a really well run festival with a ton of great beer.

But this isn’t about a festival in another city – that’s for another blog, another time.  This is about what our Cincinnati Breweries managed to bring home from a competition… spoiler, it’s medals and a big sparkly cup.

Also to note… if you don’t remember, I also try to keep an updated list of all the medals that this city has won, it’s really hard to compile something like this, so do me a favor and read it every once in a while.

Braxton

First and foremost, we have to give Braxton their big shoutout.  The brewery won the Best of Show ‘Commonwealth Cup’ for their 2017 Mole Dark Charge.  I did a little bit of digging and got the word that this was an “overwhelming” win, and that it destroyed on the score sheets.  The beer is amazing (as most of you should know by now) and this win is well deserved.  I caught up with Evan Rouse after the competition and asked him if this was a sign that we’d be seeing more of this beer in the future, and while I didn’t get a solid “Yes”, I got a smile out of him and a “that’s probably a safe bet”.   The brewery is in early talks about what this years variants will be, and I poked and prodded to see If I could get any hints, but Evan remained steadfast – we’ll have to wait and see!

  • Mole Dark Charge – Gold Medal
  • Summertrip – Gold Medal
  • Dead Blow – Silver Medal
  • Cycle Coffee Stout – Silver Medal
  • Bavarian Lager – Silver Medal
  • Jam Session – Silver Medal
  • English Pale Ale – Bronze Medal
  • Storm – Bronze Medal
  • Strawberry Gose – Bronze Medal
  • Dark Charge – Bronze Medal
  • Ignitor – Bronze Medal

Bircus

Not a bad showing for your first ever competition, Bircus brought home to medals to Ludlow, Kentucky!

  • Diving Elk – Silver Medal
  • Lagoon – Bronze Medal

Darkness

Another brewery that doesn’t seem to enter a ton of competitions, but deserves to get a bit of credit for what they’re doing, Darkness has three medals to add to their “trophy case”.

  • Man on the Moo – Silver Medal
  • Hophead Nebula – Silver Medal
  • Bellevue Common – Bronze Medal

Rhinegeist

It’s not a huge surprise to see Rhinegeist bringing home a few more medals from this competition.  The brewery didn’t get as big as they have because of their cider program alone!

  • Hustle – Silver Medal
  • Hans – Silver Medal
  • Truth – Silver Medal
  • Squirrel – Bronze Medal
  • Cougar – Bronze Medal
  • Ink – Bronze Medal

Wooden Cask

I’m not sure how many competitions Wooden Cask has entered, but they’re another one that you don’t see often, so I’m glad that this one sees them bringing home a medal back to Northern Kentucky.

  • Newporter – Bronze Medal

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