Oregon Takes Home 17 Medals at 2014 World Beer Cup

Last evening in Denver, Colorado the Brewers Association presented the awards for the World Beer Cup. Held every other year during the Craft Brewers Conference, this biennial global competition pits breweries from across the globe against one another in 94 different beer categories.

Breweries from the state of Oregon came home with medals from 17 beers along with the Small Brewing Company Category won by Pelican Brewery. Our neighbors to the north, Washington, went away with 8 medals and our eastern neighbor, Idaho, received 2 medals.

The World Beer Cup, developed by the Colorado based Brewers Association, began its biennial competition back in 1996. Now in its 10th year, this judged beer contest brings in beers from across the globe to compete in the expanded 94 different beer categories.

Drawing the highest number of entries to date, this edition of the World Beer Cup saw 4,754 beers from 1,403 breweries representing 58 countries—a 21 percent increase in the number of entries from the 2012 World Beer Cup, which had 3,921 entries.

The goal of this global competition is to create stronger consumer awareness about different beer styles and flavor profiles while promoting international brewing excellence. Every two years, a highly qualified professional panel of beer judges honors the top three beers in 94 categories with gold, silver, and bronze awards. The World Beer Cup, often referred to as “The Olympics of Beer Competition,” is the most prestigious beer competition in the world.

The president of the Brewers Association, Charlie Papazian states, “Brewers from around the globe participate in the World Beer Cup to win recognition for their creativity and brewing skills. For a brewer, a World Beer Cup gold award allows them to say that their winning beer represents the best of that beer style in the world.”

This year there was a panel of 219 judges from 31 countries that participated in the competition, working in teams to conduct blind tasting evaluations of the beers and determine the awards. Drawn from the ranks of professional brewers and brewing industry experts, 76 percent of the judges came from outside the United States.

The winners here from the Pacific Northwest featured many well-established breweries that have won medals in the World Beer Cup in previous competitions. This includes another set of medals for Pelican Brewery, Barley Browns, Widmer, Laurelwood, Hop Valley, Bend Brewing, Chuckanut, The Commons, Logsdon and Fish Brewing.

What is really nice to see are the new players in brewing that are winning awards for the first time. This list of regional breweries includes Gigantic, 10 Barrel Brewing (from Oregon and Idaho), Two Kilts, Chetco and Old Town Brewing. This is the first we heard of Chetco Brewing from the Oregon coastal town of Brookings, which won a Silver Medal in the American-Style Imperial Stout Category. Chetco is barely a year old. This is quite the feat for this newcomer.

And one of the other newcomers we are most proud of is two-year old Old Town Brewing and their brewer Bolt Minister. OTB took home two medals, a Silver for I’d Like to Buy the World a Kölsch and a Bronze for Paulie’s Not Irish Red. We could not be happier for Minister who took over brewing operations at OTB about a year ago. You can read more about what is taking place at Old Town from our post on Friday for their upcoming anniversary.

Here’s a list of all Oregon, Washington and Idaho 2014 World Beer Cup Winners.

Small Brewing Company Category – Pelican Brewery – Darron Welch and Steve Panos

Category 1: American-Style Wheat Beer, 23 Entries
Bronze: DD Blonde, Hop Valley Brewing Co., Eugene, OR

Category 2: American-Style Wheat Beer With Yeast, 25 Entries
Gold: Hefeweizen, Widmer Brothers Brewing Co., Portland, OR

Category 5: Field Beer or Pumpkin Beer, 57 Entries
Gold: Cucumber Crush, 10 Barrel Brewing Co., Bend, OR

Category 13: Other Strong Beer, 44 Entries
Gold: Brouwers 8, Flyers Restaurant and Brewery, Oak Harbor, WA

Category 18: American-Style Sour Ale, 32 Entries
Bronze: Ching Ching, Bend Brewing Co., Bend, OR

Category 19: American-Style Brett Beer, 35 Entries
Bronze: Flemish Kiss, The Commons Brewery, Portland, OR

Category 20: Wood- and Barrel-Aged Beer, 40 Entries
Gold: Pipewrench, Gigantic Brewing, Portland, OR

Category 37: European-Style Dark/Munchner Dunkel, 34 Entries
Silver: Chuckanut Dunkel, Chuckanut Brewery, Bellingham, WA

Category 45: American-Style Dark Lager, 18 Entries
Bronze: Leavenworth Bakke Hill Black Lager, Fish Brewing Co., Olympia, WA

Category 47: German-Style Kölsch/Köln-Style Kölsch, 65 Entries
Silver: I’d Like to Buy the World a Kölsch, Old Town Brewing Co., Portland, OR

Category 63: Belgian-Style Dark Strong Ale, 44 Entries
Silver: 3rd Anniversary, Airways Brewing Co., Kent, WA

Category 64: Other Belgian-Style Ale, 55 Entries
Gold: Cerasus, Logsdon Organic Farm Brewery, Hood River, OR

Category 66: English-Style Summer Ale, 31 Entries
Gold: Mother Lode Golden Ale, Laurelwood Brewing Co., Portland, OR

Category 68: Classic English-Style Pale Ale, 30 entries
Gold – Audible Ale, Redhook Brewery, Woodinville, WA

Category 69: Extra Special Bitter, 57 entries
Bronze – The Wise ESB, Elysian Brewing Co., Seattle, WA

Category 70: English-Style India Pale Ale, 41 Entries
Silver: Silverspot IPA, Pelican Brewery, Pacific City, OR

Category 71: Scottish-Style Ale, 30 Entries
Gold: Scottish Ale, Two Kilts Brewing Co., Sherwood, OR

Category 74: Robust Porter, 75 Entries
Silver: Stoup Porter, Stoup Brewing, Seattle, WA

Category 80: Barley Wine-Style Ale, 53 Entries
Gold: 2009 Old #1 Barley Wine, Scuttlebutt Brewing Co., Everett, WA

Category 81: Irish-Style Red Ale, 46 Entries
Bronze: Paulie’s Not Irish Red, Old Town Brewing Co., Portland, OR

Category 84: Golden or Blonde Ale, 67 Entries
Gold: Kiwanda Cream Ale, Pelican Brewery, Pacific City, OR

Category 87: American-Style India Pale Ale, 224 Entries
Bronze: Citrus Mistress, Hop Valley Brewing Co., Eugene, OR

Category 91: American-Style Brown Ale, 48 Entries
Bronze: Bitch Creek ESB, Grand Teton Brewing, Victor, ID

Category 92: American-Style Black Ale, 77 Entries
Gold: Turmoil, Barley Brown’s Brew Pub, Baker City, OR

Category 93: American-Style Stout, 49 Entries
Bronze: Power to the People, 10 Barrel Brewing – Boise Pub, Boise, ID

Category 94: American-Style Imperial Stout, 60 Entries
Gold: Black Flag Imperial Stout, Beer Valley Brewing Co., Ontario, OR
Silver: Block & Tackle Stout, Chetco Brewing Co., Brookings, OR

Some other tidbits of interesting stats from the 2014 World Beer Cup provided by the Brewers Association are listed below.

Category Trends

• The average number of beers entered per category was 50, up from 41 in 2012.
• The category with the most entries was American-Style India Pale Ale, with 223 entries.
• The second most-entered category was American-Style Pale Ale, with 121 entries.
• The third most-entered category was Wood- and Barrel-Aged Strong Beer, with 111 entries.

Award Highlights
The 281 awards were won by 253 breweries, with very few breweries earning more than one award.

• 226 breweries won one award.
• 26 breweries won two awards.
• One brewery won three awards.

Competition Manager Chris Swersey commented, “This is the most diverse set of winning breweries in any World Beer Cup.”

The non-U.S. entry rate and winning rate tracked very closely in the 2014 competition, with 28 percent of beers entered coming from outside the U.S., and 27 percent of awards going to beers entered from outside the U.S.

The complete list of award winners is available for download here.

Congratulations to all of the brewery competitors and especially the winners!