A Petrolia brewery is celebrating a gold medal win at Ontario's premier beer competition.
Black Gold Brewery's signature beer, Black Gold, placed first in the smoked beer category at the 2024 Ontario Brewing Awards.
Co-owner Brent Gauthier said they were honoured to receive the recognition after submitting four beers into the competition.
"We're obviously quite happy to get at least one medal out of it, and it just happened to be a gold," said Gauthier. "It's on our namesake beer, Black Gold. Petrolia is a Victorian oil town, so when we made this recipe it was designed to be the beer equivalent of crude oil."
Gauthier said the distinctive smoke flavour clearly made an impression with the judges.
"There's a whole bunch of different malts you can get that are pre-smoked. The one on this one is actually cherry wood smoked malt. The maltsters literally roast the malt, like you would anything else in a smokehouse, and the flavour gets infused into it. So, when we use that malt in our beer it transfers into the final product," said Gauthier.
A gala was held earlier this month in Niagara-on-the-Lake and their brewer Ricardo Andrade and his wife/co-brewer Danielle Case accepted the award.
In 2023, Black Gold Brewery won a silver award for their amber and brown American beer called "Angry Redhead" and a bronze award for a brown British beer called "What the Frack".
"What the Frack" had previously earned gold at the 2022 Ontario Brewing Awards