Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery, a CraftWorks Holdings brand, recently announced that its local Brewmasters won medals at the Los Angeles International Beer Competition and at the U.S. Beer Championships in Oxford, Ohio. Both events are professional brewing contests with over 7,000 beer entries. In addition, the brewing team has won several regional awards across the country.

Dan Anderson, head brewer at Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery in La Jolla Beach, California, won two silver medals in the American-Belgo-Style Ale and English-Style Summer Ale categories for Epic Joyride WIPA and the San Diego Sunset Blonde, respectively, at the Los Angeles competition. 

Thomas Mercado, head brewer at Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery in Nashville, Tennessee, won a gold medal in the Chili Beer category for his Jalapeño Lager at the LA International Beer competition. Mercado also won a bronze medal for the “Scotchy Scotch Ale” at the U.S. Open Beer Championships. 

Most recently, at the Illinois Beer Festival Competition, brewer Erik Pizer from Orland Park, Illinois. won a silver medal in the Kolsch category and bronze in the Weissbier category. Lain Wilson from Warrenville, Illinois. won silver in the Weissbier category. Overall, Rock Bottom’s teams have won close to 20 medals this year alone.

“We are so proud of all of our brewers and their relentless passion to brew the best beer possible and we’re overjoyed by the medals awarded to all our fantastic teams,” says Rock Bottom Division president Marc Buehler. “It’s extremely difficult to win these types of awards due to the explosion of breweries entering the industry and the restrictions on the number of submissions allowed; therefore, we really treasure these incredible wins.”

With more than 20 years in the craft beer business, Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery is considered an innovator and leader in the industry. Amongst the CraftWorks family of brands, the company has won over 218 industry awards for its brewing.