The Great American Beer Festival Collaboration Competition is an opportunity to celebrate the spirit and community of American commercial craft breweries as they team up to share great beer making ideas. GABF Collaboration entries are served during the Great American Beer Festival at the Collaboration booth.
How the Collaboration Competition Works
Brewers Association member breweries are eligible to submit Collaboration Competition entries with their partner brewery(-ies). Collaboration entries will be judged during the GABF professional competition by the same judge panelists, in a best of show format, with entering brewers specifying the beer styles of their entries. The GABF Collaboration competition is separate from the GABF competition, and therefore the Collaboration Competition medals do not count towards GABF Brewery and Brewer of the Year awards.
While we encourage entrants in the Collaboration competition at register to send their beer (1/6 bbl) to be served at the Collab booth at the Great American Beer Festival, this is no longer a requirement for entry. If you would like to have your Collaboration beer featured at the festival Collaboration booth, you will need to register to send that beer via our festival donation registration platform (opens on June 4, 2025). We typically see a lot of interest for brewers to have their beers served at the Collab space, so we schedule each beer to be poured at one session of the festival in order to allow for more variety and more beers to be showcased. When registering your beer for the festival you will have the option to select your preference for which session of the festival you would like to have you beer served (capacity limits apply).
