Local brewery wins best German beer at World Beer Cup

Middleburg Heights-based Fat Head's Brewery represented Ohio well at last week's World Beer Cup in Nashville.

• Fat Head's won four medals, the most of any brewery in the state.

Zoom in: The popular Head Hunter IPA took home gold in the American IPA category, a heavyweight division with more than 400 entrants.

• Bone Head won gold in the Strong Red Ale category, and Hop Stalker nabbed a bronze among experimental beers.

The intrigue: Perhaps the brewery's most striking victory was its gold medal in the South German-style Weizenbock category.

• Fat Head's AlpenGlow Weizenbock won gold, while the silver and bronze medals went to breweries in … southern Germany.

Flashback: AlpenGlow bested German breweries at the World Beer Cup in this category in 2018 as well.

What they're saying: Fat Head's North Olmsted brewer Michael Zoscak tells Axios that while they only use the finest German malts and hops for AlpenGlow, the "star of the show" is the German weizen yeast strain.

• "We have experimented over the years until we found 'the one,'" he says. "Carefully manipulating the temperature of this yeast while fermenting gives us that array of flavors and aromas from the clovy spiciness to the banana-like fruitiness."

The bottom line: "When everything goes your way, it all comes together in a beautiful package," Zoscak says.

See the full list of winners here