Niagara-on-the-Lake brewing students take 5 medals at U.S. Open

How good are the brewing students at Niagara College’s Teaching Brewery? Let’s put it this way: they entered five beers at the recent 2023 U.S. Open College Beer Championship and all five won medals.

In addition, a rye malt-based historical German style created by one of the students tied for Best in Show.

“This year’s results are superb! It’s amazing that this class of only 10 students won five medals – a medal for each beer that they entered into the competition,” said Brewmaster Professor Jon Downing.

“The students not only created the winning beers but came up with names and selected a maximum of five beers to enter in the competition, which all won medals.

“Hulk Roggan”, a historical beer created by student Gian Raina Armas, won gold and tied for Best of Show. Armas, who is originally from Cuba and has been living in Niagara Falls for the past 10 years, created a historical roggenbier (rye beer). Inspired to make a beer that is not often seen in the craft beer world, he worked on three homebrew versions of the beer before committing to the style.

“All the winning beers would have not gotten medals if it were not for the effort and assistance from the class as we all gave 200 per cent of effort not just to make our individual beers, but also make each other’s beers the best representation of what that product should be,” said Armas.

The students, who are taught on the Niagara-on-the-Lake campus, also won gold for “Echoes in the Taproom”, a Belgian Dubbel beer made by the entire class of 10 final-term students. Each school was invited to submit a beer from this year’s specified specific category – which was Belgian Dubbel for 2023 – to be judged head-to-head according to the U.S. Open style standards.

Silver medals went to “Taylor Rd. Saison”, made by Stevensville resident Marye Anne Chisholm, who also created the recipe for the gold-medal-winning class beer and “Te-Toiset Bois Belgian Tripel,” created by Thorold resident Santiago Hernan Ampudia Vasquez, a former teacher at a university in Ecuador.

The lone Bronze went to “T’Weiss as Nice’ German Wheat Ale”, a brew led by the efforts of student Jenny Lucasiewicz