Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery Wins Big

Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery, a CraftWorks Holdings brand known for its handcrafted beers and made-from-scratch food for more than 20 years, recently announced that its local Brewmasters won medals at the Los Angeles International Beer Competition and at the U.S. Beer Championships in Oxford, Ohio. Both events are professional brewing contests with over 7,000 beer entries. In addition, the brewing team has won several regional awards across the country.

Dan Anderson, head brewer at Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery in La Jolla Beach, CA, won two silver medals in the American-Belgo-Style Ale and English-Style Summer Ale categories for Epic Joyride WIPA and the San Diego Sunset Blonde, respectively, at the Los Angeles competition. Thomas Mercado, head brewer at Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery in Nashville, Tenn., won a gold medal in the Chili Beer category for his Jalapeno Lager at the LA International Beer competition.  Furthermore, Mercado also won a bronze medal for the “Scotchy Scotch Ale” at the U.S. Open Beer Championships. Most recently at the Illinois Beer Festival Competition, brewer Erik Pizer from Orland Park, IL won a silver medal in the Kolsch category and bronze in the Weissbier category and Lain Wilson from Warrenville, IL won a silver in the Weissbier category. Overall the teams have pulled down close to 20 medals this year alone.

“We are so proud of all of our brewers and their relentless passion to brew the best beer possible and we’re overjoyed by the medals awarded to all our fantastic teams,” said Marc Buehler, Rock Bottom Division President. “It’s extremely difficult to win these types of awards due to the explosion of breweries entering the industry and the restrictions on the number of submissions allowed; therefore, we really treasure these incredible wins.”

With more than 20 years in the craft beer business, Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery is considered an innovator and leader in the industry. Amongst the CraftWorks family of brands, the company has won over 218 industry awards for its brewing.

CraftWorks Holdings is the nation’s leading and premier operator and franchisor of full-service dining restaurants, spanning a national footprint of more than 390 restaurants and breweries in 40 states and the District of Columbia. The company’s diverse portfolio of restaurant brands includes Logan’s Roadhouse, Old Chicago Pizza & Taproom, and a collection of restaurant-brewery brands, including Rock Bottom Restaurants & Breweries and Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurants. CraftWorks Holdings also operates a collection of specialty restaurant concepts including Chophouse, Big River Grille & Brewing Works, AIA Ale Works, Ragtime Tavern & Seafood Grill, Seven Bridges Grill & Brewery and Sing-Sing, a dueling pianos concept.