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Well, the version that won won't, anyway.

There are two reasons for that.

The first reason is because Ben Maeso, the State Street brewpub's beersmith, didn't save a bottle when he and owner Dawn Schulz mailed the required six to festival judges in August. He thought its prospects were that, ahem, bleak.

"We just entered it because it's what we had on tap," Maeso said.Ìý"I knew it was a good beer, but I didn't think it was good enough to medal."

Maeso did save bottles of the other two beers he and Schulz submitted: Cherry Poppins and Run Like an Apricot, both fruited Berliner weisses. If any of his beers came out on top at the world's largest commercial beer competition, he thought, it'd be those.

By the time he and Schulz took their seats in the nosebleed section of a packed Colorado Convention Center for the Sept. 27 awards ceremony, they were confident. An article about the Great American Beer Festival that Saturday morning said Prison City's sours were "a frequent suggestion" in tasting lines. The same outlet would later Cherry Poppins "a standout" among the 6,647 beers submitted for festival judging.

When the American-Style Sour Ale category winners were announced, however, Prison City came up dry.

Maeso, dejected, told Schulz they should return to their booth on the festival floor before it opened at noon. Bleek Worden would make him 0-3, he thought.

"I'm pretty competitive, so I didn't want to see (the Belgian-Style Blonde Ale or Pale Ale winners) come up and be in a worse mood," he said.

Schulz encouraged the brewer to stay. A little while later, she shouted his name — when it appeared on the awards screen.

Among 47 entries in the Belgian category, Bleek Worden had won the silver.

From their wide-eyed on-stage stage op through their 5 a.m. Sunday flight out of Denver, Maeso and Schulz were the toast of the festival. They met and received congratulations from world-renowned brewers at Stone, Russian River and Firestone Walker. The latter's Matt Brynildson is a brewing hero to Maeso, he said — and he met him wearing a silver Great American Beer Festival medal around his neck.

The followed the two back home to Auburn: Maeso said his phone has never been so active with Facebook friend requests from strangers.

And, Prison City being one of five New York breweries among Ìýand the only one upstate, Maeso and Schulz expect beer fans to follow that buzz to Auburn, too.

In that way, the medal means as much for Prison City and Maeso's reputations as it does for the Bleek Worden's, Schulz said.

"It's instant validation that you're a legit player in this game," she said of her business, which opened in December. "It puts Auburn on that beer map."

Bars in Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse have been requesting Prison City's beer, she said — and being able to supply it is one step in the brewpub's expansion plans.

She and Maeso recently ordered two more fermenters and are in the process of ordering another, she said, which will first allow Prison City to go from four to eight taps of house beer at any given time. They've also submitted four labels to the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau for limited-release bottling. By next summer, they hope to be distributing a small amount of kegs.

With the new equipment, Maeso hopes to ramp up his sour production and eventually expand into lagers. Their cold-conditioning tacks on twice as much production time as ales, he said.

As for the Bleek Worden, it'll be back toward the end of October, Maeso and Schulz said. They plan to keep it on tap as often as possible.

However, it won't be quite the same beer that medaled at the Great American Beer Festival. The second reason that Bleek Worden will never be drank again is because Maeso is changing the recipe.

He took note, for instance, that the beer got better by lagering in the cooler. When the festival judges tasted it, the months-old Belgian pale ale had likely just hit its ceiling, he said.

With the next batch, he wants to raise that ceiling.

"I'm probably going to experiment a little bit with it. Make it a little hoppier, change the malt, maybe a different yeast," he said. "Then enter it next year."