If you’re going to win a Gold Medal in the U.S. Open Beer Championships, you might as well do it with an incredibly memorable name. Such is the case for St. Joseph’s Silver Harbor Brewing Company who sent their brews up against 6,000 beers nationwide and claimed a Gold Medal in the 2017 Championship. Which beer? Shipfaced. You’ll do well to enunciate clearly when telling friends and family that name to avoid a look of shock.
The 15-month old brewery in the heart of St. Joseph dispatched it’s one year anniversary commemorative brew, Shipfaced, to the competition in Ohio and emerged with a Gold Medal victory in the English Barley Wine category, just one of more than 100 different styles of beer entered into the sweepstakes earlier this month.
Breweries from Vermont to Vietnam entered the more than 6,000 beers in competition that included not only professional breweries, but also award-winning home-brewers. Judges in the event came from the United States, England and Canada.
While Cherry Street Brewing Co-op of Cumming, Georgia emerged as the Grand National Champion by winning three gold medals, one silver, and two bronze, there were eight other Michigan brewers who medaled in the competition.
In addition to Silver Harbor’s victory these Michigan breweries scored in the chase:
- Latitude 42 Brewing of Portage — Bronze for Lil Sunshine, an English Summer Ale
- Witch’s Hat of South Lyon — Silver for Rez Gets Smashed, an Imperial IPA
- Perrin Brewing of Comstock Park — Bronze for Bricktop Brown, a Brown Ale
- New Holland Brewing of Holland — Bronze for The Poet, an Oatmeal Stout
- New Holland Brewing of Holland — Bronze for Night Tripper, an American Imperial Stout
- American Harvest Brewpub of Livonia — Silver for Imperial Stout, an American Imperial Stout
- Latitude 42 Brewing of Portage — Bronze for Auld Tallywhacker, an English Barley Wine
- Hunter’s Handmade Brewery of Mt. Pleasant — Silver for Caber Tosser, a Scottish Ale
- Bell’s Brewing of Kalamazoo — Silver for Oberon, an American Specialty Wheat
- The Schmohz Brewing Company of Grand Rapids — Gold for Treasure Chest, an ESB
- Latitude 42 Brewing of Portage — Gold for El Diablo, a Chili Beer
- Latitude 42 Brewing of Portage — Bronze for Barley Wine 2014, an Aged Beer
- Perrin Brewing of Comstock Park — Gold for No Rules, in the Specialty/Anything Goes Category
The U.S. Open Beer Championship is the only major competition to allow winners of the National Homebrewers Association competitions to compete against professional breweries. The final round of judging was held at the Quarter Barrel Brewery & Pub in Oxford, Ohio.
Silver Harbor is in pretty elite territory with their Gold Medal win considering not only the 6,000 entries, but also the fact that there are more than 287 craft breweries in Michigan, creating more than 7,000 jobs and ranking fifth in the nation for breweries and brew pubs. Congratulations to Brewmaster Christian Cook on his Gold Medal talents.
Silver Harbor, a part of the Makers Trail in Southwest Michigan, is anchored at 721 Pleasant Street, on the back end of the block that features 221 Main and the St. Joseph Post Office.
They are well known not only for their performance in the world of craft beer, but also for their culinary skills in the kitchen with a tremendous line up of quality food in the house. In fact, they just rolled out their newest summer menu a week ago which kept a number of favorites and added new offerings for fans looking for a new angle.
You’ll find them in the house Sunday through Thursday from 11am until 10pm and on Fridays and Saturdays from 11am until 11pm. Online they can be found on Facebook and by clicking the link below:
