Niagara College Teaching Brewery wins three golds at 2021 U.S. Open Beer Championship

Gold medals were on tap when the Niagara College Teaching Brewery entered the recent 2021 U.S. Open Beer Championship.

For the second consecutive year, three popular student-crafted brews from Niagara-on-the-Lake college’s popular Beer 101 series have captured gold medals at the U.S. Open.

The winners were: Beer 101 Bitter (Bitter category), Beer 101 Strong Ale (Old Ale category), and Beer 101 Bock (Bock category).

Those three golds also tied the brewery for 10th spot in the competition’s list of Top 10 Breweries, and was the only teaching brewery to achieve a Top 10 ranking, alongside professional breweries from across the U.S. and one other Canadian brewery (Wellington Brewery in Guelph).

Beer 101 Bitter and Strong Ale have consistently won medals at the U.S. Open Beer Championship. They both have a history of success at the Canadian Brewing Awards, with gold (Butler’s Bitter, bottle version of Beer 101 Bitter, 2013), silver (Strong Ale, 2018), and bronze (Bitter and Strong Ale, 2019), medals.

Bock has also garnered recent success, including gold at the Ontario Brewing Awards and silver at the Canadian Brewing Awards in 2020.

“This recognition shows that our students, under instruction from Head Brewer George Eagleson and Lead Brewer Brad Barta, are taught how to brew world-class beers,” noted Brewmaster Professor Jon Downing.

“Each time our Beer 101s are brewed, it is by a different group of students in different semesters, usually as a collaborative effort between two or more classes.”

The college’s Teaching Brewery, which houses the Brewmaster and Brewery Operations Management program, were the first in Canada when they launched more than 10 years ago.

(Photo of Head Brewer George Eagleson with students Laura Park and Nigel Findlay courtesy of Niagara College)