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Winners Announced for North Carolina’s Largest Beer Competition

Sep 03, 2025 12:44PM ● By Emma Castleberry

The North Carolina Craft Brewers Guil announced the results of the 2025 NC Brewers Cup competition. Now in its 14th year, this premier competition, supported by Pro Refrigeration, Tryon Distributing, Lowes Foods, and G&A Partners, attracted a record 935 entries from 123 North Carolina’s independent craft breweries, marking it as the Southeast’s largest commercial beer competition. 

Organized at Pro Refrigeration, Inc. in Mocksville, NC, and transported by Tryon Distributing, the entries were judged simultaneously at Raleigh Brewing Company in Raleigh and White Labs in Asheville over the weekend of August 23rd-24th. Certified judges from across the Southeast assessed the beers based on the 2025 GABF Beer Style Guidelines. 

Awards were given in 36 style-based beer categories, including the distinctive NC Homegrown category, which requires at least 55% of the beer’s dry-weight to be sourced from North Carolina. The largest categories of this year’s competition were:

  • American-Style IPA with 83 entries
  • Pale European & International Lager with 66 entries
  • Juicy/Hazy Style IPA with 63 entries
As expected, Western North Carolina's breweries made a strong showing:

🥇 Gold

  • Lost Province Brewing Co. (Boone) — Black Cat Porter

  • Green Man Brewery (Asheville) — Green Man Porter

  • Olde Hickory Brewery (Hickory) — Forest Hills

  • Lazy Hiker Brewing Co. (Franklin) — Trail Candy Tropical IPA

  • Oklawaha Brewing Company (Hendersonville) — Dead West

  • Guidon Brewing Co. (Hendersonville) — Guidon Kölsch

  • Highland Brewing Company (Asheville) — Daycation Gold

  • Cellarest Beer Project (Asheville) — Sisu 2025

🥈 Silver

  • Happy Valley Filling Station (Lenoir) — Unibrown

  • Twin Leaf Brewery (Asheville) — Luminosity

🥉 Bronze

  • Twin Leaf Brewery (Asheville) — Beauty in the Cracks

🏅 Honorable Mention

  • Diatribe Brewing Company (Asheville) — Vera Sour

  • Diatribe Brewing Company (Asheville) — Rauchbier

  • Diatribe Brewing Company (Asheville) — New Zealand Pils

  • Riverside Rhapsody Beer Company (Asheville) — Drum>Space Galaxy

  • Cellarest Beer Project (Asheville) — Henotic 2025

  • DSSOLVR (Asheville) — Society #8

  • Black Mountain Brewing (Black Mountain) — Sakura

See a full list of winners at https://drinkncbeer.org/2025-brewers-cup-results. 
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