The World’s Best Brewery—According To European Beer Star

The European Beer Star 2024 awards announced today that Firestone Walker Brewing Company was the top medal winner at this year’s competition making the Paso Robles, California-based brewery the world’s best brewery for 2024.

The European Beer Star competition is one of the most prestigious beer competitions in the world. This year 140 expert judges tasted 2360 beers from 50 countries over two days of blind taste testing at the Nuremberg Exhibition Center in mid-September in Germany. Three medals, gold, silver and bronze, were awarded to beers in 75 separate categories. When scores were tallied, Firestone Walker won three golds and one bronze. Though I haven’t had a chance to try these specific beers, Firestone Walker has been a brewery I — and many others — have long admired.

The European Beer Star announced this year’s award-winning beers on November 27 at a ceremony at the Nuremberg Exhibition Center. As is the case at all beer competitions, even the biggest and most respected, not every brewery enters their beers into the competition. Many great beers are therefore ineligible for the awards. The way I think of it is not every great beer wins an award but every award-winning beer is a great beer. And a brewery that wins multiple medals is particularly special.

Here’s a closer look at the beers that earned Firestone Walker medals as well as the countries where breweries took home the most medals overall.

The Best Brewery

Firestone Walker Brewing Company won gold medals for its Belgian-style triple, Antwerp Calling, its wood and barrel-aged sour, Framboise, and its new style pale ale, Firestone IPA. The brewery also won bronze for its English-style bitter, DBA. Firestone Walker was founded in 1996 and is owned by the same family that owns Firestone Vineyard, also in California. An OG of modern craft brewing, Firestone is no stranger to success. Matt Brynildson who has been with the brewery since 2001 has earned the nickname “Merlin” from the team at the brewery and has helped Firestone Walker win many accolades and honors. These include this recent honor as well as multiple champion brewery and brewer awards from the World Beer Cup.

Often the breweries that win these types of awards have limited distribution and only those lucky enough to live near the winning breweries can try their beers. Firestone Walker on the other hand, is widely distributed throughout the U.S., so craft beer drinkers can judge for themselves if it offers the best of the best when it comes to beer.

Breweries Across The Globe Earn Honors

The European Star competition draws a truly international lineup of beers with many countries submitting dozens of entries. The most awarded country overall was Germany, the competition’s host country, which took home 71 awards, including 27 gold, 20 silver and 24 bronze. U.S. breweries took second place with 32 medals, 13 gold, 10 silver and 9 bronze. Italy came in third with 29 awards, 7 gold, 9 silver and 13 bronze. Meanwhile, Austria received 20 medals, 5 gold, 10 silver and 5 bronze. The Netherlands took home 12 medals, while Poland and Belgium both earned 10 medals respectively. Other countries to earn multiple medals include Switzerland, Brazil, South Korea and China. The widespread distribution of awards is a fun reminder of how these days high quality beer is being produced across the globe in countries in North America and Europe and well beyond.