Your Champeen: Laurelwood

I have been updating you on a competition I frankly don't fully understand, the National IPA Championship, hosted by Great Lakes Brewing News. It was set up like the NCAA Tourney, with 64 IPAs organized into brackets. The beers didn't appear to be seeded. Oregon has been doing well all along--we had three beers in the sweet sixteen, two in the final four, and one in the championship matchup. Among those power players--Deschutes Inversion, Rogue Yellow Snow--was the underdog, Laurelwood Workhorse IPA. But it was Workhorse that worked its way to the final and beat Big Sky IPA. Big Sky is itself a rather surprising longshot--I don't think many would have taken this erstwhile contract-brewed, Missoula-based beer much of a contender. But that's why you have taste-offs.

Congrats to Laurelwood!