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William K. "Billy" Busch and the two Kräftig beers.
Photo courtesy of William K. Busch Brewing Company.
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U.S. Open Beer Championship was held on July 4, 2014 in Atlanta, Georgia.
The William K. Busch Brewing Company--brewers of Kräftig lager and Kräftig light—picked up two gold medals at the U.S. Open Beer Championship held last week in Atlanta.
The U.S. Open Beer Championship is the only competition to include both professional breweries and award-winning home-brewers. This year, brewers from around the world entered more than 3,000 beers and ciders across 81 categories.
Kräftig light was awarded the gold medal for the third consecutive year in the "American Light" category while Kräftig lager brought home the gold in the "American Premium Lager" category.
Understandably, Billy Busch, president and CEO of the company, was elated. “It makes me proud to carry on my family’s tradition of making beer in St. Louis,” he told SLM yesterday. And the awards “validate everything we’re doing and how we’re doing it,” he said, referring to the strict laws that are followed to produce the company’s limited number of beers.
Both beers are brewed under Reinheitsgebot (RHINE-heights-geh-boat), the German Beer Purity Law of 1516 (the oldest consumer protection law in the world), that requires only four ingredients be used when brewing beer – water, malt, yeast, and hops—with no added enzymes, preservatives, or adjuncts. In a Q&A for SLM’s June 2014 cover story ”What’s New in Brew,” Busch told SLM that following Reinheitsgebot “translates to the cleanest possible flavor. As far as we know, we’re the only American premium lager that follows it.”
In the Q&A, Busch also noted that Kräftig’s sales “began to take off when we started winning gold medals at prestigious competitions in 2012 and 2013.”
It follows, therefore, that 2014 should be a good year for Kräftig, and that Busch may be one step closer to building his dream brewery here in his hometown.
