Fort Myers Brewing Company has earned international acclaim with a gold medal at the 2022 World Beer Cup, a global beer competition recognizing the most outstanding brewers and their beers.

The brewery was awarded gold in the Chocolate Beer category for its popular Chocolate Stout, an imperial stout that’s chock-full of sweetness and decadent layers of rich chocolate seamlessly melding with subtle wisps of roasted barley and espresso.

“For our Chocolate Stout to be named the best in the world in this prestigious competition is an incredible honor,” said Rob Whyte, who co-founded Fort Myers Brewing in 2013 with his wife, Jen.

“Our brewing team is passionate about our work to perfect and fine-tune unique, flavorful craft brews for fellow beer-lovers to enjoy, so it means a lot for our stout to be selected by judges around the world for this top recognition.”

Regarded as “the Olympics of beer,” the World Beer Cup is the most prestigious beer competition in the world, presented biennially by the Brewers Association in conjunction with the Craft Brewers Conference and BrewExpo America, which was held this year on May 5 in Minnesota.

The 2022 competition attracted 10,542 entries across 103 categories from breweries in 57 countries, and winners were selected by an international panel of 226 judges.