As Canberrans soaked up the sun and the tunes on Saturday, the craft beer world was celebrating its version of Christmas.
The announcement of the GABs Hottest 100 beer awards was the countdown of choice at Canberra breweries Capital Brewing and Bentspoke Brewing.
Bentspoke had collected third place for its Crankshaft brew by the end of the day, while Capital's XPA was ranked twelfth.
The local breweries entered eight and five beers into the ranking respectively, with results announced throughout the day on Saturday.
Rankings were based on the votes of 50,000 people (including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese).
The awards are a day to celebrate Canberra's thriving craft beer scene, which Capital Brewing marketing manager Jonny Day puts down to the territory's love of good food and drink.
"I think maybe that's why it's taken on the love for craft beer as well," Mr Day said.
"People have this shared passion for hospitality and spending time and money enjoying the finer things of life."
"And we've seen that kind of passion cross through into the craft beer world."
"It's such an epic place to have a brewery, the community really gets around you," he said.
Head brewer and co-founder of Bentspoke Brewing Richard Watkins agreed, adding that the awards were a chance to put Canberra's craft beer "front and centre".
"We can't really lose today, irrespective of where our beers fall in the in the list," Mr Watkins said.
"It's just a great day celebrating beer."
Both companies have been tracking the trends in the craft beer world for some years, and say lower alcohol and non-alcoholic drinks have emerged as a strong feature on their menus.
"Through COVID, one of the things that's definitely come to the fore is people obviously watching how much alcohol they do consume," Mr Watkins said.
It's a trend appreciated by fitness enthusiasts, Mr Day added, of which Canberra has many.
"The latest trend that I've seen coming out is more sessionable, and even non-alcoholic beers, really kind of climbing the ladder in popularity," he said.
"People are kind of finding a balance between high alcohol by volume beers and then sessionable beers to keep present and able to also bring beers into occasions that they wouldn't normally."
"[It] seems to be resonating really well with that kind of fitness consumer that wants to monitor their alcohol intake and live a super healthy life."
For those looking to sample some beer, Mr Day And Mr Watkins gave their recommendations.
For craft beer newbies: Capital's Coast Ale or Summit Session Ale, or Bentspoke's Bent.
Or for the big-time craft beer lovers: Bentspoke's Keeping it Simple or Capital's Rockhopper.
As Saturday's beer countdown came to a close, Bentspoke had picked up three spots for its beers, while Capital nabbed five places.
Mountain Culture Beer Co's, Status Quo Pale Ale took out the top spot.
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