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COLUMBUS — The Hound Song Brewing Company received some good news during their version of the Oktoberfest celebration, ‘Houndtoberfest’, after being notified of a top finish for one of their brews in the Great American Beer Festival competition.
Travis Kocurek, lead brewer for the brewhouse, once again combined his efforts with James Nicks to enter their ‘La Cabrona’ beer into the specialty Berliner-Style Weisse category where they secured third place.
“This one was born out of a conversation among us here at Hound Song,” Kocurek said, “It just pulled together pretty well, and that’s usually how it happens.”
After a month of conversations with staff and Hound Song customers, recipe building, data collecting and experimentation, Kocurek and Nicks finalized their award-winning beer to submit to the competition.
As a member of the Texas Craft Brewers’ Guild, Hound Song was able to submit their beer through a service that loaded the brew samples into a refrigerated truck that delivered them directly to the competition in Denver, Co.
While Kocurek and the rest of the crew did not get to attend the award ceremony because of their own ‘Houndtoberfest’ celebration, several of Kocurek’s industry mates in attendance made sure to notify him of their achievement.
“They have a big award ceremony and a bunch of my friends in the industry were there,” Kocurek said, “They were blowing my phone up as soon as we won.”
The Great American Beer Festival is a yearly event that allows beer-lovers to sample beers from all over the country. A highlight of the festival is the beer judging competition where samples of each beer entered are on display for judges and patrons alike.
The beers are displayed without the brand names as judges assess beers under their specialty during the tasting sessions.
According to the Great American Beer Fest website, a bronze medal beer is one that is “a fine example of the style that may vary slightly from style parameters and/or have minor deviations in taste, aroma or appearance.”
After winning the medal in the competition, Kocurek expressed his gratitude for his team and his patrons that helped Hound Song become such a staple of the community.
“I just wanted to make sure to thank everyone,” Kocurek said, “None of this would be possible without all of the folks on our team and of course without the support of Columbus and Colorado County. We wouldn’t be here without them.”
Hound Song has a few more competitions planned for the rest of the year and early 2024. They will be competing in the Denver Int. Beer Competition in the next few weeks, and they will also be looking to get more medals at the 2024 Texas Craft Brewers Cup to repeat or improve upon their performance from 2022.
