Each summer, a battle for geo-specific hoppy-beer supremacy takes place in The Beaver State. That myrcene-marked melee is organized by the Oregon Brewers Guild and is called the Best of the West Coast India Pale Ale National Throwdown. While the overarching IPA category has ballooned over the past two decades, growing to include imperial, session, cold, fruited, and even sour and smoothie-style IPAs, this professional brewing competition is purposefully precise. Craft brewers may only enter single-strength (6-8% alcohol-by-volume) IPAs, allowing for an apples-to-apples face-off wherein judges’ results are as accurate as can be and 100% asterisk-free.
This year’s Best of the West showdown took place over the weekend amongst the vibrant green bines at host venue TopWire Hop Project in Woodburn, Oregon. Winners were announced in various categories, including Traditional American IPA, West Coast IPAs (WCIPA) coming in over and under 6.7% alcohol-by-volume and IPAs produced by brewing companies in six different size classes determined by overall annual production.
When it came time to hand over medals in the International IPA and Flagship IPA categories, local operation North Park Beer Co. (NPBC) was called to the podium for Dead as a Doornail and its core beer, Hop-Fu!, respectively. Not only that, but Hop-Fu! merited top marks over every other IPA in the competition, earning it the lofty title of “Grand Champion” for 2025…