The annual Best of Craft Beer Awards judging took place this past weekend here in Bend, and earlier this week the award winners were posted. It’s a big list—they use the 2019 Brewers Association style guidelines, which list 157 styles—so I won’t post it all here. Suffice to say, there seems to be more variety in the winners this year, representing a wider cross-section of the country, which is cool. Also some surprises I’m sure.

Here’s a slice of some of the winners, by highly contested categories, or just ones that caught my eye out of interest:

In both American-style IPA and American-style DIPA, there were no Oregon winners this year which is interesting. Kulshan Brewing from Bellingham, Washington won gold for IPA, and Bonfire Brewing from Eagle, Colorado won gold for Double IPA.

However because it’s the BA guidelines there are other IPA categories, like “English-Style Summer Ale or Pale Ale or India Pale Ale” in which there were two Oregon winners—Worthy Brewing for silver and Breakside Brewing for bronze. Great Basin Brewing of Sparks, Nevada got the gold in that one.

California’s Moonraker Brewing earned gold in Juicy or Hazy India Pale Ale and silver in Juicy or Hazy Imperial or Double India Pale Ale. In that DIPA category, Vancouver, Washington’s Trap Door Brewing won gold, and Widmer Brothers Brewing won bronze. And in Juicy or Hazy IPA, Bend’s McMenamins Old St. Francis School won bronze.

Finally, in Session India Pale Ale or Session Beer, winners were Ola Brew from Kailua-Kona, Hawaii (gold), 10 Barrel Brewing here in Bend (silver), and Bron Yr Aur Brewing from Naches, Washington (bronze).

In fact, Bron Yr Aur Brewing won a number of medals which I’m quite pleased to see. We visited Bron Yr Aur in October on the press trip to Yakima and I was impressed with the small family-run brewpub. In all the brewery picked up five medals across a variety of categories:

• Gold for American-style Cream Ale
• Silver for American-style Stout
• Gold for Robust Porter
• Silver for Scottish-style Ale
• Bronze for the Session India Pale Ale or Session Beer category (entered as Session Beer)

There were a bunch of Central Oregon winners, with 10 Barrel Brewing picking up a score of medals, along with Bevel Craft Brewing, Boneyard Beer, Deschutes Brewery, Immersion Brewing, McMenamins (mentioned above), Monkless Belgian Ales, Silver Moon Brewing, Sunriver Brewing, The Ale Apothecary, Three Creeks Brewing, and Worthy Brewing.

Some other awards that caught my eye for whatever reason:

• Eugene’s Elk Horn Brewery won bronze in American-Style Barley Wine Ale or Wheat Wine Ale or British-Style Barley Wine Ale for its Wheat Wine
• Also from Eugene, Falling Sky Brewing winning bronze in American-Style Brown Ale. Falling Sky also picked up silver in German-Style Pilsener (pFriem Family Brewers grabbed gold in that one)
• Astoria’s Fort George Brewery winning gold in American-Style Imperial Stout for Cavatica Stout, which I’m not sure I’d have considering imperial but good on them
• Two Oregon breweries, Wolf Tree Brewery and Breakside, picking up medals in the American-Style Sour Ale category (silver and bronze, respectively)
• McMinnville’s Evasion Brewing swept all three medals in Gluten-Free Beer, which is surprising considering Ground Breaker Brewing from Portland usually does well (though I don’t know if Ground Breaker entered)
• Wolf Tree brought in gold for the Other Historical Beer Styles category, for its Spruce Tip Gruit

Big congratulations to all the winners!