Eight medals: how Langley's breweries did at the 2026 BC Beer Awards
Three golds, two silvers and three bronzes for Langley at the province's craft beer awards in New Westminster on October 16, with the KPU Brew Lab leading the way. Here is who won what, and where to go drink it.
The BC Beer Awards handed out their 2026 medals at the Anvil Centre in New Westminster on Friday, October 16, and Langley came home with eight of them. Three gold, two silver, three bronze, spread across five breweries, out of 866 beers entered by 95 breweries province-wide.
The biggest Langley haul belongs to a brewery you can only buy from on Friday afternoons.
Who won what
| Brewery | Beer | Category (entries) | Medal |
|---|---|---|---|
| KPU Brew Lab | Knotty Bee Irish Stout | Stout & Porter (28) | Gold |
| KPU Brew Lab | Mactoff | Alternative Fermentables Beer (10) | Silver |
| KPU Brew Lab | Schwarz | Dark Lager (20) | Bronze |
| Smugglers’ Trail Caskworks | Honey Lager | Alternative Fermentables Beer (10) | Gold |
| Smugglers’ Trail Caskworks | Broken Sun | Wheat Beer (12) | Bronze |
| Trading Post Brewing with Barnside Brewing (Delta) | Heirloom | Historical, Smoke & Wood Beer (12) | Gold |
| Farm Country Brewing | Dad Jokes Corny Lager | Historical, Smoke & Wood Beer (12) | Silver |
| Camp Beer Co. | Windbreaker Cold IPA | Hop Forward Lager (24) | Bronze |
Trading Post also has a share in a ninth medal, if you want to count it: the gold in the brand-new Fresh Hop Beer category went to a Fraser Valley collaboration led by Farmhouse Brewing in Abbotsford, brewed with Trading Post and four other Fraser Valley breweries using hops from Topp’s Hops in Abbotsford. The fresh hop beers were judged the morning of the awards, hours before the gala, because fresh hops do not wait.
A few things jump out of that table. The Alternative Fermentables category, small as it was, was a Langley affair: Smugglers’ Trail took the gold and KPU the silver. The Historical, Smoke & Wood category was the same story, with Trading Post and Barnside first and Farm Country second. And KPU’s bronze for Schwarz came in the Dark Lager category, where the gold, Tin Whistle’s Black Widow from Penticton, went on to be named Best in Show for the whole competition. Losing to the best beer in BC is a respectable way to lose.
About that Friday-only brewery
The KPU Brew Lab is the teaching brewery at Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s Langley campus on the Langley Bypass, where the students in the brewing diploma make the beer. Three medals, including a gold, put it alongside Steamworks and Smithers Brewing in the BC Ale Trail’s list of the night’s three-medal breweries, in a year when Gladstone Brewing of Courtenay was named Brewery of the Year. The Brew Lab held that title itself in 2019. The catch is the hours: public sales run Fridays from 1 pm to 6 pm, cans and growler fills, and the tap list changes with the term. Our KPU Brew Lab page has the details and the map.
Last year, and what’s next
This is a different-looking result from 2025, when Camp Beer Co. was named BC Brewery of the Year with a gold and four silvers. Camp’s single bronze this year is a smaller haul, though Windbreaker placed in a 24-entry field. If you want to follow the thread, one of Camp’s former brewers now runs the brewing side at Farmhouse Brewing in Abbotsford, which won Rookie of the Year with the only medal it entered for.
Smugglers’ Trail, meanwhile, is on a run: the BC Ale Trail notes it also picked up more than one medal at the Canada Beer Cup, the national competition held in Calgary on October 8.
All five medal winners are open and pouring. Hours, kids policies and a map for all nine Langley breweries are on our Langley craft breweries page. Smugglers’ Trail’s brewery and kitchen is in Walnut Grove on 200A Street, Trading Post and Camp are a few blocks apart on 64 Avenue in Willoughby, and Farm Country is on 56 Avenue in Langley City. If you go, say congratulations.