The 2013 Great American Beer Festival competition took place this past weekend, and California topped this year's winners list, hauling in 52 for the state out of a whopping 885 entries. New Jersey had the best beers-entered-to-medals won ration (one out of seven, or 14.3%).

Altogether, the Brewers Association awarded 252 medals in 84 categories during the biggest commercial beer competition in the world. The winners were chosen by 201 judges, who sipped from 8 AM through dusk for several days to make their way through 4,809 entries.

Following the recent trend, the most-entered category this year was American-Style India Pale Ale (IPA), which had 252 different brews fighting for a medal. Second-most popular was Imperial IPA (also known as double IPA; 149 entries) and then the relatively broad category called Herb and Spice Beer (134 entries).

The surging growth of the craft beer industry was reflected in the competition, as 230 breweries that entered beer were first-timers; 24 of them won awards. Colorado’s Left Hand Brewing tied for the most gold medals with California’s Firestone Walker (each won three). Interestingly, there were two categories in which no gold medal was awarded: American-Style or International-Style Pilsener and Imperial Red Ale.

Photos by Danya Henninger