San Diego’s Second Chance Beer company has reason to celebrate following the 2023 Great American Beer Festival. Two of the brewery’s products took home Bronze medals: Fistful of Gummies, in the Fruited American Sour Category and Tabula Rasa in the Robust Porter Category.
The Thrill of Victory
For those who may not know, the Great American Beer Festival, held in Denver, Colorado each year, is considered the most prestigious beer competition in the United States. Thousands of beers are entered into the competition and three awards, Gold, Silver, and Bronze are handed out to the three best beers in approximately 100 different categories. It is the American Olympics of beer, and an award can help spread name recognition for a brewery as well as confirm a brewery’s reputation for quality.
Second Chance Beer’s two Great American Beer Festival medals in 2023 bring the brewery’s total medals to eight. Tabula Rasa and Tabula Rasa Toasted Porter previously won two Gold medals each. Legally Red took home a Silver in 2017 and Slightly Sour won a Silver in 2020.
Gummies and Beer
Fistful of Gummies hasn’t been around as long as Tabula Rasa and we at Great Beer Now had never sampled this beer before. Lucky for us, the beer was available at the Saturday afternoon Great American Beer Festival session. This session is held immediately after the awards ceremony and if you have your heart set on trying medal- winning brews, this is the best session to attend. If you wait until the evening session, many of the award-winning beers will be kicked.
This is exactly what happened with Fistful of Gummies. Great Beer Now was fortunate to sample this Bronze medal winner and found it every bit as delicious as its victory would predict. It is a sour beer, and one concern was that it would be excessively sour and difficult to drink. There is no such issue with Fistful of Gummies. It contains both sweet and sour qualities with mixed berry flavor throughout. The sourness does show up in the finish, but it doesn’t linger and doesn’t produce a mouth- puckering sensation.
Fistful of Gummies is a fruited kettle sour and just like you would expect, the flavor is reminiscent of liquified gummies. It contains 5 percent alcohol by volume and 10 IBU of bitterness. We were lucky to get to sample this beer because it did, indeed, get kicked early in the afternoon Great American Beer Festival Saturday session. I can remember walking back to the Second Chance beer table, hoping for a second helping, but one was left.
Congratulations to Second Chance Beer!
California has a large number of breweries and a high percentage of them are headquartered in San Diego county. Second Chance Beer has received much recognition at the Great American Beer Festival competition and will likely continue to win awards in the future. Fistful of Gummies is certainly a beer worth seeking out. It’s a beer made for lovers of this fruity, sticky candy and its sweet/sour qualities make it a standout in its class.
A big congratulations to Second Chance Beer for its two medals at the 2023 Great American Beer Festival!
Oh, wow! I would love to try that gummy beer. It sounds really delicious!
Congratulations to the winners! I can’t imagine the amount of work that goes into creating a unique beer. I’ll have to keep an eye out for this one.
this is a great honor, i’m sure a lot of hard work went into the product. gummy beer sounds amazing.
Congratulations to the winner! Well deserved, no doubt. It sounds interesting and I’d love to try some gummy bear beer!
What a fun event! The Fistful of Gummies sounds unique and fun to try. I’ve never tried a fruited kettle soured drink like this before.
That is so exciting! It is always amazing when you put so much work into your brand and you get to see that hard work pay off.
Gummy beer?:What a strange concept for a beer. I don’t drink, so I’ll never try it, but if I did…
I like gummies. If I can fall in love with a perfume that smells like gummies (and I did) maybe I can like the flavor of a drink that has it favored as well.
It is with great pleasure that I congratulate the winner of the award, well deserved!
This is fantastic! Congratulations to the winner.
Your passion for craft beer really shines through in your writing, and I could feel the excitement of the event.
That’s amazing it got much recognition and although been a long time since I had a beer. I’m sure it means it’s great.