Winners’ circle

Led by River City with a pair of golds, Spokane-area breweries won nine medals in the Washington Beer Awards, announced this morning at the Washington Brewers Festival in Redmond.

River City took top honors in the strong lager category for its 2015 Congratulator Doppelbock and in British-style imperial stout with Midnight Marmot.

Other gold medalists included Bellwether, Baltic porter for Fernweh; Orlison, English dark ales for Boulder Garden Brown; and Kettle Falls’ Northern Ales, smoke beer for Smoked North Porter.

Bringing home silver were Big Barn, specialty and historic beers, Mead Honey Lager; Perry Street, New World pilsners, PSB Pils; and Clarkston’s Riverport, chili pepper beers, 5/5 Pepper Beer. Waddell’s won bronze for barrel and wood-aged sour beers with its wine barrel-aged Blackberry Sour.

The fifth annual event attracted 1,207 beers from 165 breweries in 64 style categories, making it the largest single-state professional competition so far in the United States.

Other Eastern Washington winners were Ten Pin (Moses Lake), silvers for Snake Eye Stout, Angle Amber, Bowler's Biere de Garde, Barrel Aged BeWILDering B and Groove Pineapple Wheat; Old Schoolhouse (Winthrop), silver, Blonde Ale and Rendezvous Porter and bronze, Uncle Big's Brown and Rule Breaker IPA; Icicle (Leavenworth), gold, Crosscut Pilsner and bronze, Priebe Porter; Bale Breaker (Yakima), bronze, Wood & Wire Imperial Stout; Blewett (Leavenworth), bronze, Nut Brown Ale; Snipes Mountain (Sunnyside), gold, Red Fox Irish Lager; and White Bluffs (Richland), gold, Nectar of the Gods IPA.

Marysville’s 5 Rights Brewing won small brewery of the year honors, Tacoma’s E9 topped mid-sized breweries and Bellingham’s Chuckanut was named large brewery of the year with a record eight medals. Go here for full results.