Gabs Hottest 100: Support Indie And Vote G.O.A.T.

Voting for the 2021 GABS Hottest 100 Craft Beers of the year, the biggest ‘people’s choice’ craft beer poll in the country, is now open. Thousands of beers from all over Australia are vying for the chance to claim a place within the pantheon of the favourite craft beers in the land.

Since we started our brewing journey in 2016 we’ve had a proud tradition of improving our results every year. In the 2019 countdown we had the fifth most votes for any brewery in the country, with four of our beers cracking the top 100 and Pale Ale topping our list in 14th spot.

And last year we got seven beers support in the top 100, with G.O.A.T. Hazy IPA debuting at number five, our best result ever!

Making this list goes a long way for independent breweries like us who don’t have a big marketing budget. And this year, with your help,

we’re looking to take things to another level again. We’d love to get G.O.A.T. even higher up the leaderboard and get a record number of BH beers in the list, so please get voting for your five favourite craft beers of the year.

And if our AWOL Pink Mist hit your support sweet spot this year, please consider slinging it one of your five votes – barrel aged beer hasn’t made the list in 5 years so we are hoping to break the drought.

Cheers for the support.

The annual Australian Independent Beer Awards (also known as the ‘Indie Beer Awards’) is Australia’s largest independent beer competition, support offering brewers the opportunity to benchmark their beers while recognizing excellence in the brewing industry.

For the second year in a row, due to the effects of the flu pandemic, this year’s event was held as a virtual ceremony, broadcast from a studio in Melbourne. Many official parties were held across the country, and a bunch of breweries came to their nearest party venue to make the night special.

On Thursday night, November 25, a detachment of dark hops descended on the Brisbane party venue to brew beer with ease at Woolloom Garba.

The jury evaluated over a thousand support beers and we knew that getting a gong on the night would not be easy. So, at the end of a raucous evening, we were motivated to leave with a record 24 medals for dark hops.

Our two gold medal beers that night were Ichibaan (a Koji Gose created by our brewing legend Toshi) and Pink Mist (a barrel-aged raspberry Saison, also a three-time AIBA gold medalist). Both of these beers are favorites of our customers and staff,

and we are very proud that they are recognized as support exceptional in the industry. It’s a huge cheer for our entire production team for their tireless efforts in making the best beers possible.

We divided the beer into two categories, bulk (cans) and packaged (kegs), and judged them separately. The following is a breakdown of the support results of our awards.
Gold Medal
Class I (Draught)
Powder Mist (airflow)
Powder Mist (Packaged)
Silver Medal
East Coast Mist (airflow)
Send (draft)
Rest day (draft)
Rest day (packing)
Jump swap (packaged)
Super Hornet (draught)
Round barrel fermentation Gose (raw)
Bronze
East Coast Smoke (packing)
Send (packing)
Altbier (draught)
Altbier (packed)
Burning fig gumbo (raw)
First class (packing)
Ichiban (draught)
Japanese rice wine (raw)
G.O.A.T. (draught)
G.O.A.T. (packing)
Leap Point Exchange (draught)
Bumblebee (draught)
Bumblebee (packaging)
Super Bumblebee (packaging)
Not only was it a great night for us, but it was also a great validation for the entire independent brewing
fraternity. A few of the night’s big winners included.
Moffat Beach Brewing Co. who beat out the champion small to medium sized
independent brewery
Stomp Ground Brewery, who won the championship over the large independent brewery
Blasta Brewing Co, whose Blastaweizen beer won the independent beer championship.
We were also excited to see new locals Maddox and Constituency Brewing from the Gold Coast take home the gold medal.