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This West Coast-Style IPA competition is open to everyone, even the east-coasters, and it’s a great idea!
Here’s the deal…
The Oregon Brewers Guild recently announced the launch of its first beer competition — the Best of the West Coast IPA: National Throwdown, it’s a terrific idea and we predict that it won’t be their last.
“The Guild is thrilled to announce this new event,” stated Ben Edmunds, OBG Board President. “We’ve long thought that a competition would be a fun event for the OBG to host, and there’s no better way to make that happen than by celebrating excellence within the most popular craft style in the US.”
This from the Oregon Brewers Guild…
The goal of the Best of the West Coast National IPA Throwdown is simple: identify and celebrate the best West Coast IPAs being made in the country today by a wide range of breweries and brewers.
Unlike other competitions, this event focuses on one style of beer only: West Coast IPA. Pale Ales, session IPAs, double and triple IPAs, black IPAs, and others are all wonderful styles, but this competition is not for those beers. Instead the focus is solely on West Coast IPA between 6 and 8% ABV.
There is too much excellent IPA being brewed in the United States today to award medals to only 3 beers. To reflect and celebrate the diversity of this popular style, we break West Coast IPA down into several novel subcategories, and we honor top beers across those sub-styles and intentionally honor beers based on production volume, availability, and brewery size.
Following the approach of many international competitions, Judges will award silver and gold medals to qualifying beers in each category. Gold medalists in each category will compete against each other for a Category Championship, and the Category Champions will compete for the Grand Champion/Best In Show IPA award.
Winners will be announced in July 2023
The Oregon Brewers Guild is renowned for their annual Zwickelmania open-house event, the Portland Fresh Hops Festival, and the Central Oregon Winter Beer Festival, but they’ve never taken on a national competition of this scale, let alone one solely dedicated to a very specific style.
Christina LaRue, Executive Director, Oregon Brewers Guild
“Although we’ve seen in-person events come back over the past year, we are dealing with much higher costs to run them and uncertain attendance rates,” Christina LaRue, Executive Director of the Guild added.
“We’ve been brainstorming alternative event ideas and delving into the world of beer competitions just made sense.”
Registration for the competition is open through July 7th (so if you want in on this you need to act now) and is open to breweries from all 50 states. All beers entered must be produced on a fully licensed, commercial brewery with a TTB Brewer’s Notice on file.
Founded in 1992, the Oregon Brewers Guild is one of the nation’s oldest craft brewers associations and all proceeds from the competition will go to supporting their efforts.
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(All image credits: Oregon Brewers Guild)
