Zach Top Accepts His CMA Award With a Beer in Hand

Zach Top just won New Artist of the Year at the 2025 CMA Awards, accepting his trophy in the most Zach Top way possible: with a beer in his hand like it was part of the dress code.

And it was the most on-brand acceptance moment that will go down in CMA history.  

Top, who was up against Ella Langley, Shaboozey, Stephen Wilson Jr., and Tucker Wetmore, started his acceptance speech by addressing the beer in his hand: “Thank you very, very much. I can't remember if I was supposed to put my beer down first or not, but here it is now. I'm so thankful to be included in a category with a bunch of other great artists that have had phenomenal years. I'm thankful to be here.”  

He also thanked God for giving him the talent to sing and play, and his parents for "realizing that I was never gonna be a professional cowboy or a baseball player, so maybe the closest I could get was to sing about cowboys,” per People.  

One of the highlights of the awards show was Top winning New Artist of the Year, his first. The Washington native also stepped up to the CMA stage as a performer for the first time. After winning the award, Top said in an interview that he would probably celebrate with beer: “I mean, I brought a beer on stage for my acceptance speech, so it’s going to involve a lot of beer, probably.”  

He added that he’s unsure if he’s the first artist to accept an award with a beer in tow: “I don’t know. It’s the first time anyone this dumb has ever won an award like that, so yeah, maybe it is the first time. I don’t know. But anyway, as I was walking, I was looking at the award and I’m like… Well, I’ll tell you what. I had a bullet list of all the people that I needed to thank on my phone and I went to pull that out, and I realized both my hands are full, and I was like, ‘Yeah, one of ’em is full of a beer.’ I don’t know if I was supposed to do that or not, I don’t know if it was the classiest look or not, but hey… It’s me. You get me. Whether you like it or not.”