Premium, locally sourced ingredients and a passion for quality craft beer led Idaho Brewing Company to three gold medals, plus a silver and a bronze, at the North American Brewers Association’s International Beer and Cider Awards.
Idaho Brewing Company got its start under owner Leon “Wolf” Wolfram, following his volunteer work at the now-defunct Dr. Hops and Brownstone Brewing around 2003.
After years of work securing permits and a new location, the Idaho Falls-based brewery introduced its first stout at the beginning of 2009 before opening its tasting room that May.
Since then, Idaho Brewing Company has found success not only as a business with a dedicated clientele, but as an award-winning brewery built on high standards and a love of craft beer.
Wolfram said he just took it day by day.
“We just wanted to make the best craft beer we could,” Wolfram said. “You kind of learn by doing and talking to other people. The brewing community is pretty close. If some brewery needs help, and we’ve got something we can help with, it’s theirs, because it’s a two-way street.”
Thanks to the tight-knit nature of area breweries, there’s a sense of security when a brewer needs an extra bag of grain or other ingredients. They operate on an honor system and pay it forward when the time comes.
“If we have tourists coming through and they’re heading to Yellowstone or Grand Teton, we tell them to stop in and see the guys in Victor, and when they get over the hill, talk to the boys over at Snake River,” Wolfram said.
That communal spirit among beer crafters is often reciprocal, with other breweries sending visitors to Idaho Brewing Company in turn.
The award-winning brews speak for themselves. After winning gold in its debut year, Idaho Brewing’s Baltic Porter won gold again. Its light beer, What a Pear, also won gold, along with its Bad Badger ESB. Other wins included a silver for its Idaho Brewing Hefeweizen and a bronze for its Lip Crawl Tripel.
Other regional winners included a gold for Pocatello-based Jim Dandy Brewing’s Ambush and a silver for Lava Hot Springs-based Eruption Brewing’s You Fuggly Brown Ale.
Wins in the Teton Valley area included a silver and bronze for Guidepost Brewing Company’s WoodID and Lagerithm, along with a bronze for Highpoint Ciders’ MotherTrucker.
Salmon-area winners included Bertram’s Salmon Valley Brewery, which received gold for its Meet Your Maker and bronze for its Mt. Borah Brown, and Highlander Beer Salmon, which received gold for its King of the Road and silver for its Illuminated Bines.
The North American Beer Association International Beer and Cider Awards is an annual competition in Idaho Falls hosted in the days before the Mountain Brewers Beer Fest, a public beer tasting festival now in its 31st year.
The competition itself gives breweries, cideries and other producers the chance to have their products judged by qualified experts against the best beers and ciders in the country. Judging for the 2026 competition took place June 3-5, with the awards ceremony held June 5.
The style guide judges use covers profiles such as aroma and flavor, along with the subtle nuances of classic ale styles.
“The classic styles all have particular things — like a Scotch ale would normally be more malty than a pale ale,” Wolfram said. “In a pale ale, the bitterness is more dominant in the flavor profile than in, say, a Scotch ale, because of history and conditions. Hops don’t grow very well in Scotland, and they’re expensive, so rather than making something hoppy and bitter, the Scots went for something malty and sweet. They save money by not buying a lot of hops, but then they have a lot of alcohol in there, so they make up for any deficiencies. There’s a whole list of faults you can look for that you probably want to reject.”
Even before the awards ceremony, Idaho Brewing Company’s lineup was well loved by regulars and aficionados alike. The Bad Badger ESB and What a Pear have been around for a while, and the brewery’s most popular and widely distributed beer, the Highland Scotch Ale, has yet to win a medal.
Wolfram said that’s a common experience for many breweries — their most sought-after beers often never win an award, but you go with what works and what customers want.
“If you make a good quality product, it should probably sell itself,” Wolfram said. “We strive for that, and try not to cut corners or dumb it down or anything like that.”
Lisa Harston, tasting room manager at Idaho Brewing Company, said Wolfram and the business always try to use local ingredients where possible, highlighting a spud-based beer the brewery released a few years ago.
“For the commissioning of the USS Idaho, we made a specialty beer for them, and it actually won that year, too,” Harston said. “But for the local ingredients — going to something like the Bavarian Hefeweizen, Wolf gets all the ingredients from Germany. He specifically follows the style guides. He doesn’t cut corners, so these beers taste good.”
Wolfram said the brewery gets all of its base malt from a local supplier near Ucon, mentioning Shelley-based Farmhouse Ales, which helped malt wheat for the company’s spud beer and Bavarian Hefe.
“A lot of our hops come from local suppliers like Mill 95 in Nampa and Alpha Hops over in Parma,” Wolfram said. “We still have to get some stuff from our grain suppliers, especially malts — some of that comes from Germany, some from the UK — but we try to use as many local ingredients as we can and support all of our local businesses.”
Idaho accounts for about 39 percent of the United States’ total barley crop and is the largest barley-producing state in the nation. For the past 14 consecutive years, it has led the country, producing roughly 55 million bushels annually.
It’s no wonder area breweries often take their craft seriously, with such a wide array of quality barley and other ingredients sourced in their own backyards.
Wolfram said it’s rare to win as many awards as Idaho Brewing Company did, but the surprises often come from the brews that fly under the radar.
“Normally, the beers that win have a good balance to them — they taste just right to people,” Wolfram said. “You can be just as surprised about getting a medal for one beer as you are about not getting one for another.”
The Mountain Brewers Beer Fest is held every year during the first week of June, and Wolfram said that while he loves being recognized with medals, his dedicated customers’ opinions matter most to him.
“The people going through the front door, that tasting room — they’re the ones that keep us going,” Wolfram said. “Those are the judges we value the most.”