Page 10 Berthoud Weekly Surveyor

October 24, 2013

City Star brings home gold & bronze

By Heidi Kerr-Schlaefer The Surveyor

Ale or Strong Ale beer style category. field is pretty crazy. Brewed with wildflower honey, its City Star is located at 321 Mouna winter seasonal in City Stars tain Ave., and they are open Monday The Great American Beer taproom. A new batch is in through Tuesday from 2 to 9 p.m., Festival (GABF) is the grandthe tank and should be Wednesday through Friday from 2 to 10 daddy of all beer fests. This available any day. p.m., Saturdays from noon to 10 p.m. three day celebration of As a longtime home and Sundays from noon to 9 p.m. fermented barley and brewer it wasnt until wheat at the Denver Conafter providvention Center attracts ing his home hundreds of breweries brew for a and draws nearly 50,000 Halloween beer drinkers to the city. party that This year a panel of 201 friends urged judges tasted a record 4,809 John to start a beer entries in 84 beer-style brewery, but he categories from 745 brewernever thought it ies. The entries are capped by the was possible. Five City Star number of judges available, Brown Ale years later, John and if their entries werent proudly displays submitted promptly, brewers were City Stars many medals in left out in the cold. Colorado won 46 the taproom. medals including 19 gold, 10 silver and Winning a medal at 17 bronze. Among the outstanding list GABF is something you of winners was City Star Brewing of always aim for, but the Berthoud. reality is that the competiSubmitted photo In fact, City Star was one in a small tion is so fierce. Were in Berthouds own City Star Bewery was awarded with a gold group of Colorado breweries that took the same category with medal at the Great American Beer Festival (Oct. 10-12) home multiple medals, included Dry for its Bandit Brown Ale, an English-style brown ale, and Oskar Blues, Firestone Dock, Left Hand Brewing Company, a bronze medal in the Old Ale or Strong Ale category for Walker and all these huge SandLot, Rock Bottom Brewery and Mule Kick. Pictured from left to right is lead brewer Ryan breweries, said Whitney. Joy, Emily Taylor, Charlie Papazian, founder of the GABF, Cannon Creek Brewing. To be able to win in that Whitney Way and John Way. Opening on May 4, 2012, John and Whitney Way, City Star owners have had a wild ride over that last 22 months, including getting married and being displaced because of the flooding in their hometown of Lyons. Theyve also won numerous awards for their beers, but its the GABF medals that mean the most. This is the World Series of beer. A medal at GABF is the most prestigious, biggest award you can ever win in the United States, said John Way. City Stars Bandit Brown has done well at beer competitions throughout the year, and John and Whitney walked away with a gold medal for this tasty brown ale at the GABF. Unlike other competitions, the awards ceremony at the GABF is live. During the awards presentation John and Whitney sat with what they call The Class of 2012, the other breweries that opened that year. We were all rooting for one another and trying to send Facebook messages out and text people. We were all shaking. It was just crazy, said Whitney. They were down to the last three categories that we had entered and we won for the Bandit and then quickly we won for the Mule Kick. We thought theyd already announced that category, so we were surprised. Mule Kick won a bronze in the Old

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