Icicle Brewing Company wins large brewery of the year award

PUYALLUP - Amidst a field of 175 competing breweries in Washington, Icicle Brewing Company emerged as the Large Brewery Of The Year winner at the 2023 Washington Beer Awards. This annual competition is Washington’s most prestigious beer competition, where trained panels of judges evaluated 1,276 beers spanning 139 unique styles.

To win Large Brewery Of The Year, Icicle Brewing Company was awarded five gold medals and two bronze medals for a wide variety of beers across multiple styles. Here is the list of winning beers:

•     Gold Medal: Magic Meadow Hazy Double IPA | Category: Juicy/Hazy Imperial/Double IPA
•     Gold Medal: Enchantments Hazy IPA | Category: Juicy/Hazy IPA
•     Gold Medal: Cot In The Heat: Category | Chili Pepper Beer
•     Gold Medal: Premium Pilsner: Category | International-Style Pilseners
•     Gold Medal: Alpenhaze Fresh Hop-Citra | Category: Fresh Hop Juicy/Hazy Pale Ales
•     Bronze Medal: New Zealand Pilsner | Category: Contemporary American-Style Pilsners
•     Bronze Medal: Colchuck Raspberry Wheat | Category: Fruit Wheat Beers

Icicle co-founder Pamela Brulotte beamed with pride while attending the award ceremony in Puyallup, where she celebrated with a dozen colleagues. “I am so incredibly proud of our team!” she exclaimed, “I’m honored and grateful to be surrounded by such a dedicated group of hard-working people at the top of their game! Our brewers have been doing such a wonderful job these last few years, and it’s fantastic to see them get this recognition.”

Icicle Brewing Company is no stranger to winning awards for producing quality beers, recently receiving national and international recognition. Last year, their flagship hazy IPA Alpenhaze won a silver medal in the Great American Beer Festival, and in 2023 it won gold at the World Beer Cup, often referred to as “the Olympics of Beer Competitions.” Premium Pilsner was awarded a bronze medal in the same competition.

Icicle Brewing Company is amongst the top ten largest craft breweries in Washington and brews beer in two Leavenworth locations. Three of the seven gold medal-winning beers from this year’s competition are currently available in distribution across the Pacific Northwest, while the others are taproom-exclusive releases.

Washington is well known for producing a large majority of the nation’s hops, and the quality of craft beer production in the state is well-renowned. The Washington Beer Awards is in its tenth year, and winners were announced Nov. 3 at the Washington Craft Beer Summit at the Puyallup Fairgrounds.