Gold Medal for Haas Innovations Brewery’s Standout Haastoberfest Lager

The Haas Innovations Team has done it again. The Best of Craft Beer Awards just announced that Haastoberfest, the beer inspired by our blowout party last harvest, took home gold for Pale European Lagers!

This year’s Best of Craft Beer Awards Competition hosted nearly 60 international judges who evaluated 1,498 entries, awarding gold, silver, and bronze medals to just 153 of those beers entered. Now in its 12th year, Best of Craft Beer Awards has become one of the United States’ fastest-growing beer competitions and is currently the third-largest professional brewing competition in North America. The Pale European Lager category was among the most-entered, with 57 entries vying for the top spot.

This isn’t the first time Haastoberfest has brought home the hardware…

Haastoberfest also won the coveted “First to 86” award at the 2025 FoBAB Lager Lounge

Haastoberfest lager has quickly become a favorite among Haas staff and virtually everywhere else it was put on tap, including at Chicago’s 2025 Festival of Barrel-Aged Beers (FoBAB) in the Lager Lounge—a oasis of refreshing, lower-alcohol lagers among scores of rich, boozy, barrel-aged beers. Charolette Converse, Solemn Oath Brewery Director of Operations and Lager Lounge coordinator, hands out a “First to 86” award to the first beer to run out at the Lager Lounge each year, which Haastoberfest most recently won.

“It was a crowd favorite, to nobody’s surprise,” shared Converse. “The style standards were perfectly executed while the beer was simultaneously an approachble and thirst-quenching beacon in a landscape of fantastic lager options.”

We’re thrilled with this achievement and send our congratulations to all of our fellow Best of Craft Beer awardees!

Haastoberfest may be off the tap lists for now, but in the meantime you can grab our award-winning recipe and try it for yourself:

Haastoberfest

Notes: This beer utilizes a 0.87 SO₄:Cl ratio to allow for a slightly malt-forward profile.

Grains

Weyermann Pilsner malt 47.8%
Weyermann Vienna malt 22%
Great Western 2 row 19.2%
Weyermann Munich malt 9.6%
Acidulated malt 1.4%

Hops—70 min boil

After 10 min (6o min remaining)
Flex^® — 10 IBU

After 55 min (15 min remaining)
Strisselspalt – 3 IBU
Hallertau Tradition – 6 IBU
Tettnang – 4 IBU

Yeast

Imperial L13 Global lager yeast or similar

Procedure

Allow 10 days primary fermentation, 3 day diacetyl rest, and take 6 days to walk down from 14°C (57°F) to 2°C (35°F). Lager for 12 days at 2°C, and allow another 12 days for cold crashing at 0°C (32°F) before filtering and packaging.