I am a sucker for any kind of beer awards, if I see a listing of best beers I’ll definitely browse through and search for local recipients. I know that there can be issues with these types of awards. The crowd-sourced best beer awards tend to favor whalez, there is a selection bias where the reviewers give higher ratings to sought-after beers. Blind tasting awards are ideal, but they don’t usually give you the full list of entries (just the winners), so you don’t know if it’s the best out of 5 or 500. The medals handed out at the Great American Beer Festival are generally well regarded, they draw a large number of entries, even if they tend to skew towards West Coast breweries. One local winner at last years festival was Robot Crush from Aeronaut Brewing Company in Somerville, which won the gold medal for pilsner. Aeronaut was clearly honored by the award, and it came as no surprise that they added Robot Crush to their beers that they package in cans and distribute.
Aeronaut Robot Crush pours a clear straw yellow with a solid white head. The scent is mostly floral old world hops. This is a flavorful, balanced and crushable pilsner. The hops add notes of grass, herbs and lemon along with a crisp bitter bite. There is also substantial malt flavor, hints of grainy bread and biscuits. Robot Crush has a light body with the crisp and clean finish you expect from a well crafted lager. When my wife took her first taste of this beer her exact reaction was “wow, this is really good”. I completely agree, this is a top-shelf pilsner and I understand why it won the gold medal. Hoppy Boston score; 4.75/5.
Previous Aeronaut Reviews:
Aeronaut A Year With Dr. Nandu, Aeronaut A Session With Dr. Nandu, Aeronaut The Eye of Sauvin
Hoppy Boston 
