La Reforma Brewery finds a bright spot in the form of its first GABF gold medal

The virtual version of the Great American Beer Festival awards ceremony caught more than a few people by surprise. In the case of La Reforma Brewery co-owner John Gozigian and head brewer Robert Buskirk-Lechner, it ended up being a rather pleasant surprise when they captured a gold medal on Friday night.

“So I’ll be perfectly honest, I wasn’t watching it this year,” Buskirk-Lechner said. “I find that it’s a lot of stressful moments during the announcements. There’s a letdown when you get passed by. I’m always down with that if you’re there in person and see all the others from New Mexico win, but it’s rough from a distance. I figured I wasn’t going to bother with it this year, so I was just sitting around at home when I got a text saying GOLD in all capital letters. It took me a couple minutes to figure out what’s going on.”

The same thing happened to

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