Briefly: Oregon Beer Award Winners 2023

Last night, in what I presume was a grand gala affair, contest organizers announced the winners of the annual Oregon Beer Awards (although I love judging the event, my introversion compels me to stay home when galas arrive). The US holds any number of awards comps each year—in fact, the Best of Craft Beer Awards for some reason happens simultaneously in Bend—but in Oregon, the OBAs actually mean something.

Willamette Week, Portland’s alt-weekly and the main sponsor, has the results here. The OBAs don’t adhere to the GABF style categories—they have fewer than a third, with just 30. I think that’s one reason these matter; it’s not a situation where half the breweries who enter win a medal. Click through for the whole list, but here are a few from key categories:

  • Pilsner. Three years in a row, pFriem took the gold. Not in 2023. Corvallis’ Sky High Brewing knocked the mighty pFriemsters off their perch! Van Henion, a newish brewery from Bend that’s really been doing fantastic work, took gold in the sister category for non-pilsner pale lagers with their Helles.

  • IPA. Grains of Wrath Built for Speed. No surprise there

  • Hazy IPA. Bend Brewing Day Use. (Bend is a venerable brewpub that punches above its weight, esp in a city lousy with great beer.)

  • Fresh Hop IPA (from last fall). Ruse Songspire. Also no surprise.

  • Mixed Culture. Wolves and People Traveling Companion. (I threw this one in because Oregon, perhaps more than any state, has breweries focused on these kinds of beers. We do very well in national competitions like the GABF. Nice to see W&P sneak into the top spot.

 
 

Finally, a WTF?? postscript. The OBAs finally have their own webpage (anyway, it’s new to me), and on the front page, where organizers list all the components of the competition, they write:

Taste the winning beer.

In 2023, we’re growing the event by adding a beer festival to the celebratory festivities. The industry audience will celebrate at the awards show, and will then be joined by beer-loving Oregonians in tasting award winning beer at an outdoor festival. We’ll hold the awards and the festival in SE Portland at Revolution Hall (inside ceremony, outdoor event).

That sounds like an awesome idea. Willamette Week, what happened? You have a year to prep—let’s see that fest in ‘24.

 
Jeff Alworth