Brewery Vivant Brings Home Bronze Medal at the Great American Beer Festival®

Brewery Vivant, located in Grand Rapids Michigan, earned a bronze medal at the 2016 Great American Beer Festival (GABF) competition. Presented by the Brewers Association, GABF is the largest commercial beer competition in the world and recognizes the most outstanding beers produced in the United States. The top three winners in the competition’s 96 beer-style categories were announced October 8 at the Great American Beer Festival awards ceremony held at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado.

“It is a big honor to medal in the sour beer category,” said Jason Spaulding, owner & president at Brewery Vivant, “as we were up against breweries like Russian River, Crooked Stave, Wicked Weed, & New Belgium who are making beers that we have the highest respect for.”

Brewery Vivant was recognized in the Wood-Aged Sour beer-style category for its Angelina, a darker, maltier Abbey Ale which features some underlying flavors of sweet, ripened stone fruits  while presenting funky brettanomyces nose, and allows for the lactobacillus sour profile to shine through. Brewery Vivant is a 8000-barrel microbrewery located in the East Hills neighborhood of Grand Rapids, Michigan that specializes in living the good life by brewing farmhouse inspired beer, serving a from-scratch menu and building a sustainable community one beer at a time.

“Angelina was the name of the very first barrel we filled when we opened.” Spaulding reminisced, “She produced some great flavors and we’ve been using it to inoculate barrels ever since. To be recognized for our ‘house sour’ is a tremendous honor.”

This honor comes off the heels of the Brewery’s very own wood-aged beer festival, featuring 20+ aging experiments, and this past summer’s launch of its Plein de Vie series-- a line of limited distribution beers centered on wood & wild fermentation. Angelina and other Plein de Vie beers can be found throughout Michigan and Chicagoland in 500ml glass bottles.

The 2016 GABF competition winners were selected by an international panel of 264 expert judges from the record number of 7,227 entries, plus 88 Pro-Am entries, received from 1,752 U.S. breweries.

“The innovation, creativity and flavor of American beers was well showcased at this year’s Great American Beer Festival,” said Chris Swersey, competition manager, Great American Beer Festival. “This was the most competitive competition to date, with a record number of entries. Congratulations to all the winners who truly demonstrated the best of America’s beer culture.”

About Brewery Vivant:

The brewery is located in the East Hills neighborhood of Grand Rapids, in a renovated funeral chapel built in the early 1900s. Their staff of around 60 employees specialize in Belgian/French inspired beers and fare in a completely unique setting. Husband and wife partners Jason and Kris Spaulding opened the doors for business in December of 2010. Vivant beers are distributed throughout Michigan and the greater Chicago area. They are the first commercial brewery in the nation to receive Silver LEED Certification from the USGBC. Additionally they are100% renewable powered, a silver-level Bicycle Friendly Business, and are a certified B Corporation. Beer the Change®!