Winners of the 2024 Oregon Brewers Guild Best of the West Coast IPA National Throwdown

This past Friday, the Oregon Brewers Guild announced the winners of its Best of the West Coast IPA National Throwdown at TopWire Hop Project. Now in its second year, this annual competition is one of the Guild’s largest revenue sources as it recruits breweries from around the country to enter this one of a king IPA competition.

For the competition’s second year, it received 181 entries from 13 states. This was a slight decline as in its inaugural year the competition saw over 200 entries. Thirty judges from five states evaluated the 181 entries in triplicate in both preliminary and trophy rounds. This is said to make the Best of the West one of the most thorough and intensive beer competitions in the world.

From the judging that took place in mid-July, 57 beers met the criteria to enter into medal contention and 36 beers ended up being awarded medals in the Best of West Coast IPA National Throwdown.

So how does the Best of West competition work when it is dedicated to one single beer style? Well first off, yes, it is one style, but there are six various categories withing the West Coast IPA style for this competition. These categories include Traditional American IPA; WC IPA Below 6.7%; WC IPA Above 6.7%; International IPA; Flagship IPA; and Oregon Hop IPA.

The judging at the Best of the West award’s multiple gold and silver medals, recognizing the quality, breadth, and depth of the world-class IPA being produced in the country. The winning beers represent genre-leading examples from some of the county’s top producers of hop forward beer. Coming out on top at the 2024 Best of the West Coast IPA is Riip Beer Co. as it was awarded the Grand Champion IPA for its Riip’n Greens. Riip won the Grand Champion award in 2023 as well for a different IPA, Danky Doodle Dandy. Camas, Washington’s Grains of Wrath won the Runner-Up Grand Champion award for its beer Destination Funeral while also taking home a separate gold medal for Built for Speed.

Breweries from 13 states participated in this year’s competition, with heavy representation coming from Oregon, California, and Washington. Medal winning beers came from 5 states– the 3 West Coast states as well as Texas and Colorado. California breweries led the medal count with 16 awards, followed by Oregon at 11. Breweries were limited to 3 entries regardless of size or number of locations.

In addition to Riip and Grains of Wrath, other notable winners included Oregon’s Breakside Brewery and California’s North Park Beer Co and Fieldwork Brewing all of which won 3 medals– one for each of its entries. Colorado’s Westbound and Down and Cerebral Brewing and Texas’s Pinthouse Brewing demonstrated that you don’t have to be a West Coast brewery to make great West Coast IPA as both were awarded gold medals despite being over one thousand miles from the nearest Pacific beach.

Below is the complete list of 2024 Best of West Coast IPA National Throwdown Winners that’s followed by the category sizes and other stats of the annual competition.

Medal	Brewery	Beer
Grand Champion IPA	Riip Beer Co.	Riip’n Greens
Runner Up Grand Champion IPA	Grains of Wrath	Destination Funeral
Very Small Brewery Champion IPA	Brujos Brewing	Sixes
Small Brewery Champion IPA	Trap Door Brewing	D.R.E.A.M. Jr.
Medium Brewery Champion IPA	Cerebral Brewing	Gasoline Rainbows v.10
Small Regional Brewery Champion IPA	Pinthouse Brewing	Mosaic Take Down
Large Regional Brewery Champion IPA	Breakside Brewery	Bayside IPA
Very Large Brewery Champion IPA	Boneyard Beer	Hop on the Party Bus
Champion Traditional American IPA	McMenamins Old Saint Francis School	Brewing In Stereo
Champion WC IPA Below 6.7%	Grains of Wrath	Destination Funeral
Champion WC IPA Above 6.7%	Riip Beer Company	Riip’n Greens
Champion International IPA	Hop Dogma	Muka Laka Hiki
Champion Flagship IPA	Beachwood Brewing	Amalgamator
Champion Oregon Hop IPA	Ghost Town Brewing	Vine Breaker
Gold Medal	Breakside Brewery	Breakside IPA
Gold Medal	Fieldwork Brewing Company	Ticket To Anywhere
Gold Medal	Grains of Wrath	Built for Speed
Gold Medal	Half Moon Bay Brewing	Full Swing
Gold Medal	Hop Dogma	Alpha Dank
Gold Medal	ISM Brewing Co.	Western Standard Time
Gold Medal	North Park Beer Company	Get On My Lawn
Gold Medal	North Park Beer Company	The Coast with the Most
Gold Medal	Trap Door Brewing	Trap Door IPA
Gold Medal	Westbound & Down Brewing Co.	Westbound IPA
Silver Medal	Beachwood Brewing	Hyperspeed
Silver Medal	Block 15 Brewing Co.	Deep Seek
Silver Medal	Breakside Brewery	Wanderlust IPA
Silver Medal	Cloudburst Brewing	Until Eternity
Silver Medal	Fieldwork Brewing Company	Middle Out
Silver Medal	Fieldwork Brewing Company	Westcoast Slang
Silver Medal	Grand Fir Brewing	Ponga
Silver Medal	North Park Beer Company	Hop Fu!
Silver Medal	Pelican Brewing Company	Hoppa Don’t Preach
Silver Medal	Slice Beer Co.	Chronic Quest
Silver Medal	Sunriver Brewing Company	Whatever You Do, DO NOT CALL IT THAT
Silver Medal	Sunriver Brewing Company	Always Sunny in Yakima
Silver Medal	TapRoom Beer Company	Modern Love
Silver Medal	Vice Beer	Linoleum

Category	Total Entries	Prelim Flights	Average Flight Size	Beers Getting 0 Top 3 Votes	Beers Getting 1 Top 3 Vote	Beers Getting 2 Top 3 Votes	Beers Getting 3 Top 3 Votes	Total Beers Advancing to Trophy Contention	Silver Medals Awarded	Gold Medals Awarded
Traditional	15	2	7.5	5	4	4	2	6	1	2
WC IPA Below 6.7%	43	4	11.00	23	8	8	4	12	3	5
WC IPA Above 6.7%	46	5	9.20	20	11	11	4	15	4	6
International	28	3	9.33	15	4	4	5	9	3	3
Flagship	44	5	8.8	21	9	6	8	14	3	5
Oregon Hop	5	1	5	1	2	0	1	1	0	1
Total	181	20	8.47	85	38	33	24	57	14	22
Total %	–	–	–	46.96%	20.99%	18.23%	13.26%	31.49%	7.73%	12.15%

The 2024 Best of West Coast competition was limited to 450 beers total. Each brewery was limited to a maximum of 3 entries. Multi-site breweries and brewery groups with common ownership were limited to 3 entries total – the same as single-site producers. The fee for each entry was $40 or $100 for 3 beers.