Boulder County brewers tapped four medals at last weekend"s Great American Beer Festival in Denver, including a gold. Boulder"s Mountain Sun Pub and Brewery won first place in the Robust Porter category with its 1535 Pearl Street Porter. "All our beers are hand-crafted, and started from scratch," said Tim McMurray, manager of Mountain Sun. The Boulder brewpub is best known for Colorado Kind Ale and Java Porter.

McMurray said the brewery"s concoctions have won several awards over the years, including three years of gold at the Great American Beer Festival for Hogback Doppelbock.
McMurray attributes the success to finely crafting full-bodied beers in small batches.
"We"ve got a seven barrel system, which yields just 12 kegs per batch of beer," he said. "It"s more of a homestyle brew than some of the big microbrews."
Longmont"s Pumphouse Brewery and Restaurant took home two silver medals, and the Walnut Brewery in Boulder won one silver.
"It"s great to win two, of course," said Pumphouse general manager Ross Hagen. "Especially for a small, locally owned establishment going up against so many of the big guys.
"These medals will definitely help to give our brewery some county-wide recognition."
The festival awarded nearly 200 medals for 65 different types of brew.
The Pumphouse"s Incinerator Doppelbock took silver in the 25-entry German-style Dopplebock category, and its Backdraft Imperial Stout was judged second best of 40 entries. Walnut Brewery"s St. James Irish Red was judged next-to-best of 27 entries in the Irish-style red ale category.
The festival, which is in its 22 year, featured 393 breweries; 330 of these featured booths on the festival floor.
The Great American Beer Festival is one of the most challenging in the country because if judges don"t feel any one beer exemplifies the characteristics of a medal winner, they don"t award that particular medal, said Bob Baile, president of Twisted Pine Brewing Co.
"Judges aren"t going to award gold, silver and bronze medals just because three breweries entered. That"s what maintains the integrity and standards we have for the festival," said Cindy Jones, a spokeswoman for the Association of Brewers, the organization that hosts the event.
This year, three categories received only two medals and one received only a bronze medal.
But not everyone who attends the festival is concerned with medals.
"There are two extremes to people at the festival," said Paul Abling, a second-year volunteer. "The first are the hardcores who only taste certain types of beers or certain breweries. The second are the partiers who are just trying to drink as many beers as they can."

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