Bellingham, WA and its surrounding county are now home to 14 craft breweries producing a variety of high-quality beer styles and many have earned national recognition. In 2017, six Bellingham breweries won a total of 28 medals at three major competitions. Two Bellingham breweries won gold medals at the 2017 Great American Beer Festival (GABF) in Denver, which is the largest commercial beer competition in the world. This year’s competition had 8,100 entries by 2,290 breweries and gave out 292 medals in 98 categories. Chuckanut Brewery was awarded a gold for its Kolsch German style Ale and a gold for its Chuckanut Dunkel Lager at GABF. Wander Brewing won a gold medal at GABF for its Correspondent beer in the Export Stout category. Three Bellingham breweries won medals at the 2017 North American Beer Awards (NABA) in Idaho. The judging included 96 different styles of beers with over 1,700 beverages entered. Chuckanut Brewery won six major medals at the NABA. Three beers won gold including their Kolsch German Style Ale, Pilsner Lager, and Dunkel Lager. The Vienna Lager and Helles Lager each won a silver medal and the new Doppelbock won a bronze medal. Boundary Bay Brewery won a gold medal for its Batch 6000 Baltic Style Porter at the NABA. Wander Brewing won a silver medal at the NABA for its Global Mutt in the ChocolateCocoa Beers category, as well as a bronze medal for its Together beer in the Dubbel category. Bellingham breweries won 16 medals at the 2017 Washington Beer Awards (WBA), where 1,207 beers were entered in by 165 breweries. All of the beers submitted must have been both brewed and made commercially available in the state of Washington. Chuckanut Brewery was named Large Brewery of the Year at WBA. Chuckanut won 8 medals at the event including gold medals for its Chuckanut Pilsner, Chuckanut Alt, and Chuckanut American Wheat, silver medals for its Chuckanut British IPA, Vienna-Style Lager, Chuckanut Doppleback, and Chuckanut Kolsch, as well as a bronze for its Chuckanut Dunkel. Kulshan Brewing Company won a gold medal for its Premium Lager and silver medals for its Transporter beer in the Brown Porter category, as well as for its Gose German sour beer at WBA. Wander Brewing won two gold medals at WBA for its Correspondent in the Irish Stout category, and for its Wild Warehouse in the wood and barrel aged beers category. Boundary Bay Brewery won gold at WBA for its Neighborhood Watch sour beer. Stone’s Throw Brewery won a silver medal for its Raincountry Liquid Sunshine Lager at WBA. Aslan Brewing Company won two bronze medals for its Classic Light Lager and American Stout at WBA. In addition to these awards, Sip Northwest Magazine's Fall 2017 issue awarded Kulshan Brewing with a double gold Best Stout for its Russian Imperial, and awarded Aslan Brewing a double gold Best Northeastern Style IPA for its Batch 15. For more information about Bellingham beer see www.bellingham.org/eat/beer/. With a population of 85,000, Bellingham is located in the upper northwest corner of Washington State near the Canadian border. The Bellingham region is widely known as an outdoor adventure and recreation haven for its proximity to Mount Baker and the Salish Sea.
