By Bobby Tanzilo Senior Editor/Writer Published Sep 26, 2023 at 8:37 AM

On Monday, the 2023 U.S. Open Hard Seltzer Championship Medal Winners and Grand National Champion were announced.

While Kansas City's Boulevard Brewing was named Grand National Champion after taking home seven medals, including four golds, two Milwaukee breweries cracked the top 10, and one of them was No. 2.

The Explorium Brewpub earned that second position, while Ope! Brewing finished fifth.

“I’m super proud of my team’s talent, creativity, and technical know-how to produce such high-quality products that they are winning awards over such a huge field of national breweries," says The Explorium's Mike Doble.

"I can’t say enough how happy we are to receive this recognition on such a large national stage.”

Nearly 70 American breweries entered 251 seltzers for judging in the competition.

Nineteen brewers earned gold in 29 categories in the competition. See the full list of medalists here.

The competition is held in collaboration with the Niagara College Teaching Winery and Teaching Brewery and judges from England, Canada and the U.S. took part in the event, held at the U.S. Open Event Center in Oxford, Ohio.

Here are the final results.

Top 10 U.S. Open Hard Seltzer Brewers

  1. Boulevard Brewing – Missouri
  2. The Explorium Brewpub – Wisconsin
  3. Park City Brewing – Utah
  4. Crow and Wolf Brewing – California
  5. Ope! Brewing – Wisconsin
  6. Penrose Brewing – Illinois
  7. Uinta Brewing Company – Utah
  8. Toppling Goliath – Iowa
  9. Durty Bull Brewing – North Carolina
  10. Marker 48 Brewing – Florida
Bobby Tanzilo Senior Editor/Writer

Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.

He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.

With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.

He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.

In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.

He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.