Oregon Beer Awards: Winners, Stats, and Notes
This year’s judging had a distinct Covid quality.
In a streamed event last night, organizers of the annual Oregon Beer Awards announced the winners of 84 medals in 28 categories. These awards are a pretty big deal in the Beaver State. Beer is local, and brewers all drink each other’s offerings. Once a year, many of them get together to judge their favorites (while the judging leans predominantly toward brewers, they let in a few randos like me for variety). Coming out on top of a blind tasting leaves winners more than a little proud.
This year was an unusual feast in that a handful of breweries won multiple medals. A bit more than a hundred breweries entered the competition, but the top ten took home 50 of the 84 medals. I don’t know if this had anything to do with Covid, or was by chance—or may hint that a few breweries set the standard in the state. More on the trends soon, but for the full results go to the New School.
Feast and Famine
This year 105 breweries entered around 1,100 beers, slightly down from last year, but not bad for a pandemic. I think there’s no way to look at the results and not acknowledge that a few breweries are really killing it. There is always year-to-year variation, but it’s hard to ignore the success of the top breweries. Below is a list of the major winners.
Winners by Medal Count
Brewery, gold, silver, bronze (total medals)
Breakside 6, 3, 4 (13)
10 Barrel 4, 2, 1 (7)
Alesong 2.5, 1, 2 (5.5*)
Von Ebert 2, 1, 1 (4)
Sunriver 0, 2, 2 (4)
pFriem 2.5, 1, 0 (3.5)
Ecliptic 3, 0, .5 (3.5)
Wayfinder 0, 2, 1.5 (3.5)
Zoiglhaus 2, 1, 0 (3)
Ruse 2, 1, 0 (3)
Deschutes 1, 2, 0 (3)
(*half-medals go to breweries sharing a collab winner)
We’re also seeing some breweries develop natural areas of strength. pFriem won gold in pilsner for the second year in a row. Ruse and Sunriver dominated the IPA categories, winning five of the six medals on offer. Ruse took gold and silver in the hazy category, while Sunriver took three medals. Just Von Ebert was able to crash the party, taking a gold in American IPA.
Ecliptic managed a nice trick, winning gold for both its regular and barrel-aged version of Oort Imperial Stout. Alesong has become a dominant player in the realm of barrel-aging. No surprise, since that’s their specialty, and yet it’s not like there aren’t some extremely accomplished breweries working in that space. Kudos.
Finally, nods to 10 Barrel and Breakside for really impressive hauls. Both do well across styles, though Breakside has a special gift for fresh-hop beers, winning four of nine total medals.
On Judging IPA
The judging was unusual because of Covid. Conducted over three weekends, judges were sequestered and their “table” was a Zoom chat room. Because of that, I ended up judging a lot of American IPA. I noticed something interesting.
In the first round, the IPAs were all over the map. There were darker ones, lighter ones, bitter ones, hazy(ish) ones, and so on. Nobody at our table consciously designated what a “proper” version of the style was, and yet in later rounds our inclinations seemed obvious. The beers became lighter and more juicy—that is to say, more modern. I have no doubt some folks still enjoy heavier, more bitter copper IPAs with noticeable caramel sweetness. And sales may reflect that. But those weren’t the beers that impressed the judges. We were drawn to juicier, more balanced examples. Beer is a cultural product, wherein what’s “proper” is decided by silent consensus. I guess lighter, juicier IPAs have become the standard—at least in Oregon.
Congrats to all the winners and everyone who helped put this together. The stewards especially have my admiration. Nice work!