Horse Thief Hollow wins gold at the Great American Beer Festival for its international-style pilsener, Little Wing, after snagging the gold medal earlier this year at the World Beer Cup.

The Brewers Association has awarded Chicago, Beverly-based Horse Thief Hollow the gold medal for its Little Wing beer in the International-Style Pilsener category at GABF, held in Denver on 23 September.

This year 9,298 commercial breweries were evaluated, and 303 medals were awarded to 263 breweries at the awards ceremony, which is the largest professional beer competition in the US. Horse Thief Hollow was one of only 7 Illinois breweries to receive a medal, only two of which took home the gold. See the full list of 2023 winners here.

In May, Little Wing also won the gold medal at the World Beer Cup competition in Nashville, allowing Chicago’s South Side to lay claim to the world’s top pilsener. Browse the rest of the winning beers here.

Little Wing was part of a packaging system redesign by Malt in collaboration with wonderfully talented illustrator Jessica Deahl. A storybook paper-cut style intertwined local Beverly history and the song-inspired beer names to create a series of colorful and magically whimsical beer labels.