Hartsville, South Carolina isn’t exactly a beer mecca — but Wild Heart Brewing Company just put it on the map. The brewery walked away from the 2026 U.S. Open Beer Championship with four medals and the title of Brewery of the Year in the 501-to-1,000-barrel division, beating out hundreds of competitors.
U.S. Open Beer Championship founder Dow Scoggins drove in from Ohio to hand-deliver the trophy and medals to head brewer Zach Riner and assistant brewer Jerry Rivers at a small ceremony in town. For a brewery that only started entering the competition three years ago, the results were a pleasant shock. Wild Heart submitted five beers and four medaled — a hit rate most breweries would kill for.
The standout was Convergence, a New England-style hazy DIPA that took gold and has already sold out. The brewery also shared a gold medal with Boulevard Brewing Company for Wild Culture Brett Beer Slow Bloom — of which only a limited supply remains before it’s gone for good. Rounding out the haul: silver for the West Coast-style pilsner Hop Atlas, and another silver for Weight of Sound, a collaboration brew made with Southern Hops Brewing Company and Riverbend Malt House.
For co-founders behind Wild Heart, which opened its doors on Railroad Ave. in downtown Hartsville in 2021, the win means more than trophy shelf space. The brewery was built to give locals a reason to be proud of their town — and to give visitors a reason to stop in. A national medal haul does exactly that.
South Carolina had a big showing overall, with nine breweries across the state combining for 17 medals — six gold, six silver, four bronze, and Wild Heart’s Brewery of the Year title.
About the U.S. Open Beer Championship
Founded in 2009 by Dow Scoggins, Jon Downing, and Rick Roberts — former owners and brewers of Friends Brewing, Georgia’s first craft brewery — the U.S. Open Beer Championship has grown into the third-largest beer competition in the country. Since 2023, the U.S. Open has been lead by director, Spencer Mapes, and held annually in Oxford, Ohio, the competition draws entries from professional breweries and award-winning homebrewers alike, judged across more than 170 style categories. Each year, five Brewery of the Year titles are awarded across production tiers, ranging from tiny operations under 251 barrels to giants producing more than 15,000. Beyond the trophies and medals, the competition has become known for “The Barn” — a converted 5,000-square-foot Amish agricultural building that houses coolers, a nano brewery, and even a six-hole putt-putt course built for children with special needs — along with the annual ALS Beer Bucket Challenge, reflecting the event’s roots as a community as much as a competition.
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