Best of the West Coast IPA winner to be crowned in new beer competition

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – The Oregon Brewers Guild will crown the Best of the West Coast IPA Friday night in their new IPA national throwdown.

The competition received 200 IPA submissions from 80 breweries across 15 states.

“I feel like the west coast IPA style… brewers love it,” Oregon Brewers Guild Executive Director Chirstina LaRue said. “I feel like west coast because it’s such a traditional style — even though brewers modernize it with either brewing process or the hops that they’re using — it’s still one of those traditional styles that I think brewers gravitate towards.”

LaRue said the guild came up with the competition after the brewing industry struggled during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The Oregon Brewer’s Guild, we’ve been looking at different options for bringing in income. Since the pandemic, we’ve had a hard time with in-person events coming back and we’re just trying to find different avenues for revenue generation and so we’ve been throwing around the idea of a beer competition,” LaRue said.

The award ceremony will be held Friday, August 4 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at TopWire. The ceremony is open to the public and will also be live streamed on the Oregon Brewers Guild’s social media accounts.