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Off Color Brewing’s AH-CHOO! Wins Best of Show at 2026 National Honey Board Honey Beer Competition

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Honey Beer Competition

ERIE, Colo. (Aug. 26, 2026) — The National Honey Board has named the best beers made with honey in the country, and the top prize went to Chicago.

AH-CHOO!, a honey saison from Off Color Brewing in Chicago, won Best of Show Gold at the 2026 Honey Beer Competition. The 6.8% ABV beer is brewed with lemon blossom honey, koji-inoculated rice from the brewery’s sake program, and bee pollen.

Judges tasted more than 150 made-with-honey beers on Saturday, August 22, at The Lemp Mansion in St. Louis. Sixteen certified judges scored the entries blind under Beer Judge Certification Program guidelines.

“The enthusiasm and participation of America’s breweries in the Honey Beer Competition continues to impress and inspire us,” said Catherine Barry, vice president of marketing for the National Honey Board. “Congratulations to Off Color Brewing and their winning beer! We’ve enjoyed many of their honey beers over the years, and AH-CHOO! further establishes them as a standout in the craft of brewing with honey.”

Best of Show medals

  • Gold: AH-CHOO! — Off Color Brewing, Chicago, IL (honey saison, 6.8% ABV)
  • Silver: Forget the Flowers — Runaway Blue Brewing Company, Newark, NY (rice lager with orange blossom honey and orange blossom flowers, 5% ABV)
  • Bronze: Honey, I’m Home! — Lock 27 Brewing, Centerville, OH (10% ABV braggot with Wild Miami Valley honey and East Kent Golding hops)

Best in Show for Design

Birdhouse Brewing Co. in Honeoye, N.Y., won for the honey-bear bottle design on its Honey Cream Ale.

2026 category gold medalists

  • Amber/Brown Ales: Orange Blossom Special — Tie & Timber Beer Company, Springfield, MO
  • Barrel Aged Beers: Double Barrel Aged Cursed Hive — River North Brewery, Denver, CO
  • Belgian-Style Ales: AH-CHOO! — Off Color Brewing, Chicago, IL
  • Ciders: 40 Myke Myke — Cider Corps, Mesa, AZ
  • Fruit/Vegetable/Spiced Beers: Beenut Butter Brown Ale — Nansemond Brewing Station, Suffolk, VA
  • General Ales: Honey Kölsch — Bent Barley Brewing Company, Aurora, CO
  • General Lagers: Forget the Flowers — Runaway Blue Brewing Company, Newark, NY
  • Hard Seltzers: Raspberry Chamomile Hydromel — Whistle Hop Brewing Company, Fairview, NC
  • Other Beers: Honey, I’m Home! — Lock 27 Brewing, Centerville, OH
  • IPAs: West Coast IPA — Primal Brewery, Huntersville, NC
  • Sours: Nature’s Whimsy — Manor Hill Brewing, Ellicott City, MD
  • Wheat Beers: Orange Blossom Honey Wheat — Volunteer Brewing Company, Middletown, DE
  • Design/Packaging: Honey Cream Ale — Birdhouse Brewing Co., Honeoye, NY

The full winner list is at honeybeercompetition.com.

About the National Honey Board

The National Honey Board is an industry-funded agriculture promotion group that educates consumers about honey and honey products through research, marketing, and promotional programs. Work is funded by an assessment on domestic and imported honey and is designed to increase honey use among consumers, foodservice, and food manufacturers. The 10-member board is appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture and represents producers (beekeepers), packers, importers, and a marketing cooperative.

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Texas’s Only Certified Organic Craft Brewery Celebrates National Organic Month With Gold-Medal Beers and a New Hard Seltzer Pack

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Big Country Organic Brewing Company

AUSTIN, Texas — September is National Organic Month, and Big Country Organic Brewing Co. is using it to make a simple point: USDA Certified Organic beer can taste as good as anything else on the shelf.

The Austin-area brewery is currently Texas’s only certified organic craft brewery. After six years of sourcing organic hops and grains and keeping the facility organic-compliant, Big Country is putting medals next to that claim.

Gold medals for organic lagers

Little Wing Light won gold at the 2026 San Diego County Fair Craft Brew Competition. TexMex Lager won gold in the Mexican-Style Pale Lager category at the 2026 U.S. Open Beer Championship.

Those results matter because organic brewing is harder than conventional brewing. Only a small number of farms grow certified organic hops and malt, so recipe flexibility is limited.

Founder and CEO Bill Gillies put it this way:

“We fully believe in the benefits of organic but honestly, it can be challenging. There are only a handful of organic farmers producing hops and grains so we don’t have the flexibility in developing our recipes that the non-organic beverage producers are granted. It is absolutely incredible that we can go head-to-head against the non-organic producers and come away with gold medals for our TexMex and Little Wing Lagers and bronze medals for two of our new hard seltzers. That is a real tribute to our brew team and their ability to make great beer and seltzers and still maintain the clean and eco-friendly attributes of organic certification. Cheers to the great artisans we have on our team!”

New Adventure Pack hard seltzer

Big Country has replaced its original hard seltzer variety pack with the Adventure Pack. The four flavors are:

  • Jalapeño Strawberry
  • Blueberry Lemonade
  • Cherry Organic
  • Guava Limeade

Each can is 4% ABV, zero sugar, and 80 calories. Big Country says it is the only hard seltzer line that carries all three of these certifications at once: USDA Certified Organic, Non-GMO Project Verified, and Fair Trade Certified.

Why they stay organic

Organic farming is meant to build soil fertility, reduce chemical runoff into water, cut emissions, and support pollinators. The brewery also points to lower pesticide residue, more nutrient-dense crops, and safer conditions for farm workers.

Fair Trade purchases for the seltzer program have sent more than $100,000 back to the farmers who grow and process those ingredients.

Growing beyond Texas

Distribution is expanding into Colorado and Southern California. Next up is Big Country Gardens, a planned East Austin taproom that will pair organic craft beer with coffee and food in a garden setting inspired by the Texas landscape.

About Big Country Organic Brewing Co.

Big Country Organic Brewing Co. is currently the only operating certified organic craft brewery in Texas. The company carries USDA Organic, Non-GMO Project Verified, and Fair Trade Certified credentials and positions itself as a pioneer of organic beverages in the alcohol category.

For more information, please visit https://enjoybigcountry.com/

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A Pub Weaves Its Own History: 26 Foot “The Beer Tapestry” Unveiled at London’s Museum Tavern

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While the British Museum prepares to host the legendary Bayeux Tapestry this fall, a historic pub just across the street decided beer deserved its own epic. The Museum Tavern on Great Russell Street in Bloomsbury — a Greene King pub that’s poured pints since the 18th century — has unveiled an eight-meter embroidered “Beer Tapestry” tracing the story of British brewing from the Norman Conquest to the modern craft era, and for the month of September the pub has even renamed itself “The Beer Tapestry” to mark the occasion.

The tapestry was created as a tongue-in-cheek response to the Bayeux Tapestry’s arrival, picking up the storytelling thread where the famous Norman embroidery leaves off — the tale begins in 1066 and unfolds across eight illustrated scenes running from the Norman conquest through the arrival of hopped beer, the dissolution of monastic brewhouses, the rise of Greene King, and the impact of war on the brewing industry. Greene King head brewer Jack Palmer called it a fun way to spotlight the heritage of the original Bayeux piece while sneaking in a beer history lesson, and the brewery even released a limited-edition dark copper cask ale, also called The Beer Tapestry, to go with it. Unlike its 1,000-year-old inspiration across the street, this one comes with a bar stool and a pint within arm’s reach.

Address: The Museum Tavern, 49 Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, London WC1B 3BA, UK
Website: greeneking.co.uk  

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Von Ebert Brewing Releases Its First Fresh Hop Beers of the 2026 Season

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Von Ebert Brewing

Portland’s Von Ebert Brewing is rolling out its first fresh hop beers of harvest season, starting with Fresh Hop Volatile Substance NW IPA. The beer uses Simcoe hops from Coleman Agriculture and leans into smashed berry, sticky pine resin, and sweet citrus.

In mid-September the brewery will follow with Fresh Hop Sector 7 Hazy IPA, made with Krush hops from Perrault Farms. That one is built around ripe pineapple, ruby red grapefruit, and sweet green melon.

Both beers will be available at Von Ebert’s three Portland-area locations and at Northwest bars, bottle shops, and grocery stores in 16-ounce cans and on draft until they run out.

“We’re lucky to be in the Northwest making beer where nearly all of America’s hops are grown,” said brewmaster Sam Pecoraro. “This geographic advantage allows us to celebrate fresh hops in a way other breweries can’t. We’re also able to partner with local hop growers right in our backyard.”

Taproom deals and a bigger can lineup

At all three Von Ebert locations, 20-ounce mugs of Clubhaus Lager — a World Beer Cup gold-medal American light lager — are $3 all day. At the North Mississippi taproom at 825 N. Cook Street, regular Volatile Substance NW IPA is $5 from noon to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. The brewery also sells non-alcoholic hop sparkling waters, hard seltzers, hard punches, and hard teas.

The North Mississippi production brewery has lifted capacity from about 4,000 barrels a year toward 20,000. Von Ebert is more than halfway there, with more beer going into 12-ounce and 16-ounce cans and distribution now reaching Oregon, Washington, Colorado, California, and Japan.

About Von Ebert Brewing

Tom M. Cook and Tom S. Cook founded Von Ebert Brewing in Portland in 2018. The name honors family matriarch “Grandma Ebert,” who emigrated from Germany through Ellis Island. Von Ebert loosely means “House of Ebert,” or “House of the Boar.”

The brewery has stacked World Beer Cup medals in recent years: gold in 2025 and silver in 2026 for Clubhaus American Light Lager, gold in 2023 for its German-style pilsner, and bronze in 2024 for Vienna lager. Fresh hop season is when that Northwest setting shows up most clearly — hops from nearby farms, packed into cans while they still smell like the field.

For more information, please visit https://www.vonebertbrewing.com/

Cellarest Beer Project Releases Bimble, a Coffee Blonde Lager With Riverbend Malt and Coffee Library

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Cellarest Beer Project

West Asheville’s Cellarest Beer Project has released Bimble, a 4.8% coffee blonde lager brewed with North Carolina malt from Riverbend Malt House and a custom coffee blend from Coffee Library. The beer is on draft now at Cellarest. Sixteen-ounce four-packs are expected at the brewery in the coming weeks.

Bimble is the third chapter of Riverbend’s pallet coffee program. In 2025, the Asheville maltster started thanking full-pallet malt customers with a Coffee Library blend, because brewery mornings usually start with coffee. Brewers liked the first two blends enough that Riverbend invited Cellarest — a brewery that has used local ingredients since it opened — into the third one.

How the coffee blend was chosen

Riverbend and Cellarest cupped coffees at Coffee Library and landed on two lots: a naturally processed Brazilian Catuai from Cerrado Mineiro in Minas Gerais, grown at about 1,100 meters, and a washed Mexican coffee from Zangolica, Veracruz, grown between 1,250 and 1,700 meters. The Brazil side brings almond, brown sugar, and milk chocolate. The Mexico side brings cinnamon, cocoa, and baking spice.

“I wanted to encourage more cocoa and depth to the Mexican coffee’s brown sugar and cinnamon notes, and the Brazilian seemed to provide that,” said Cellarest co-founder and director of fermentation Mark R. Goodwin.

“The Mexico coffee provides that nice warm, subtle spice and the Brazil enhances the creaminess and cocoa, chocolate notes,” said Noah Marines, head roaster and certified Q Arabica grader at Coffee Library.

What’s in the beer

Bimble is built on Riverbend Southern Select, Great Chit, Vienna, and Double Kilned Munich malts, hopped with Willamette, and fermented cold with Cellarest’s German lager yeast in an acacia wood foudre. The glass shows fresh coffee, cocoa, cinnamon, and brown sugar up front, then light toffee and honey-biscuit notes from the malt.

The name fits. To bimble is to wander without hurry. That is how three Asheville businesses — maltster, roaster, and brewery — arrived at this beer.

About the partners

Cellarest Beer Project was co-founded in 2020 by North Carolinians Harrison Fahrer and Mark Goodwin. The carbon-neutral West Asheville brewery is known for wood-fermented lagers and mixed-culture beers and uses North Carolina malted grain in every beer.

Coffee Library is an Asheville specialty coffee company focused on blend architecture, private-label roasting, and hospitality programs.

Riverbend Malt House, founded in Asheville in 2010 by Brent Manning and Brian Simpson, was the first craft malthouse east of the Mississippi. It connects Southeastern family farms with breweries and distilleries that want local malt instead of commodity grain.

Follow Cellarest Beer Project on Instagram and Facebook for can-release dates. Media questions about Bimble or Riverbend’s pallet coffee program can go to Emily Hutto at Rad Craft Beer.

For more information please visit https://cellarestbeer.com/

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