America’s Best Brewery Is One You Probably Haven’t Heard Of

The U.S. Open Beer Championships gave the title of Grand National Champion to a little-known Midwestern brewery.

Published July 12, 2024

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The U.S. Open has crowned a new champion, and it’s not who you were expecting. No, I’m not talking about tennis. Or golf. I’m talking about the 2024 U.S. Open Beer Championships, a self-described “top-three beer competition in the U.S.A.” that handed out a wide range of awards on July 9.

The contest, which is limited to beers produced in America, is wide-ranging. This year, over 9,000 beers from across the nation were judged, representing 170 different styles — the most beer styles judged out of any beer contest on the planet.

And when it was all said and done, one relatively little-known Midwestern brewery rose above the fray to earn the title of the competition’s Grand National Champion.

Third Eye Brewing Company Is America’s Best Brewery

So says the judges of the 2024 U.S. Open Beer Championships, anyway. The craft brewery from Hamilton, Ohio earned the title of Grand National Champion after securing a total of eight medals at the competition — four gold, two silver and two bronze.

third eye brewing beers — Eight different Third Eye beers won medals, securing the championship for the brewery.

Third Eye Brewing took gold in the categories of Strong Scottish Ale (Higher Consciousness), Chocolate or Cocoa Beer (Double Astral), Peanut/Peanut Butter (Dark Aura) and Nut Beer (Inner Sight). It secured silver medals in the Herb and Spice Beer (Chai Eye Captain) and Wood/Barrel-Aged Strong Scotch Ale (Barrel Aged Higher Consciousness) categories, and it took home bronze medals for Barrel Aged English Barleywine (Kelly’s Private Stash) and English Dark Mild (Groovy Baby).

Third Eye, while not known among the mainstream, does have a reputation for dominating certain unique styles of beer at national competitions — as you can probably tell by some of the stranger categories that it won. The brewery, which has a sister brewery and taproom in Sharonville, Ohio, previously won Brewery of the Year in the 1,001–2,000 barrels-a-year bracket at the 2023 Great American Beer Festival.