The Great American Beer Festival from Brewers Association on Vimeo.

Chuckanut Brewery & Kitchen, which opened in 2008, claimed the title as the 2009 Small Brewpub and Small Brewpub Brewer of the Year, winning 4 medals out of the 13 awarded to Washington breweries: two gold (Chuckanut Dunkel and Vienna Lager) and two silver (German Pilsner and Chuckanut Schwartzbier), at the 28th Annual Great American Beer Festival in Denver, Colo. Chuckanut Brewery is the first brewery in the history of the Great American Beer Festival competition to win a Small Brewpub of the Year award with all Lager-style beers.

Breweries are awarded points based on medals won, and these points are tabulated for the results of the 2009 GABF Brewery of the Year Awards. The GABF judges awarded Chuckanut Brewery the 2009 Small Brewpub and Small Brewpub Brewer of the Year based upon the medals won.

Other Washington brewing medals went to: Pyramid Brewery (Haywire Hefeweizen and Mactarnahan’s Amber), Redhook Ales (ESB and Treblehook), Silver City Brewery (Old Scrooge ’98, Ridgetop Red, and Gold Mountain Pilsner), Snipes Mountain Brewing Inc. (Coyote Moon), and Ram Restaurant & Brewery (Clearwater Kolsch).

The Great American Beer Festival is the largest and most prestigious competition for American craft beers. This year’s competition featured 3,308 beers from 495 breweries, a panel of 132 judges from 10 countries, 78 beer categories, and 51 first time breweries at the competition.