It’s been in business for less than a year, and COLD Coast Brewing Company has already gained national recognition for one of its ales.
In early October, the Lompoc-based brewery’s co-founders flew to Denver, Colorado, to attend the Great American Beer Festival—the largest annual commercial beer competition in the U.S. More than 2,000 breweries from around the country competed in this year’s contest, including COLD Coast.
Co-founder Eric Oviatt said that he and the brewery’s other three co-founders—Dave Caro, Mike Lamping, and Jason Drew (the C, L, and D of COLD Coast)—weren’t expecting to win in any of the categories they entered, but that didn’t stop them from having a good time.
“We had a ball. We went there for the experience. We’re beer nerds,” Oviatt said. “That was the first time we’d ever been. … We were not expecting any kind of win.”
That’s why the group felt “completely dumbfounded” when COLD Coast’s name was announced during the awards ceremony on the final day of the festival, Oviatt explained.
Oviatt can clearly recall hearing that the brewery won a bronze medal in the American brown ale category—but after that, the awards ceremony felt like a surreal blur, he said.
“I don’t remember anything for 20 minutes after they called our name. I barely remember walking up onstage,” said Oviatt, who at least has photographic proof that he and two of his colleagues accepted the bronze medal at the Colorado Convention Center.
COLD Coast’s award-winning brown ale, known as Brown Evolved, was one out of more than 9,000 libations from participating brewers submitted into the competition. The contest’s winners were selected by a panel of 235 judges. Three winners were chosen from each of the event’s 98 beer categories.
Oviatt said that his brewery’s bronze win wasn’t just a shock to him and his fellow co-founders, it was a surprise to several other brewery owners at the event—some of whom had never heard of Lompoc.
“During the awards ceremony, we were sitting in a row with a few other breweries … and when our name got called, somebody in the row yelled, ‘What the f—!’” Oviatt said with a laugh. “We were all thinking that in our head, but somebody yelled it.”
“Walking around the Beer Festival afterwards with a medal around our neck, people just treated us differently,” Oviatt added. “Everybody wanted to talk to us afterwards. Before that, we were getting questions like, ‘Where’s Lompoc? I’ve never heard of Lompoc.’ That’s about the extent of what people said to us when we were walking around for the first couple of days.
“But after we were walking around with the medal, everybody wanted to know how we brewed … and, ‘What’s in your brown? What makes it so special?’”
Brown Evolved is described as a classic American brown ale with bready, biscuity, toffee, and chocolate notes of toasted American malt. The medal-winning beverage is currently sold out but will be back on tap at COLD Coast within the next few weeks after a new batch is brewed, Oviatt said.
In the meantime, Oviatt recommends guests try the brewery’s original brown ale on tap, which he described as one of COLD Coast’s flagships, darker and less hoppy than Brown Evolved.
One of the reasons the bronze win still feels surreal for Oviatt is because he’s heard stories from friends in the industry who’ve competed year after year without winning.
“We’ve got friends down in LA that have been trying for nine years and they still haven’t won a medal,” Oviatt said. “We didn’t think that there was any way we were going to win.”
Send ale tales to Arts Editor Caleb Wiseblood at cwiseblood@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Oct 20-27, 2022.