2025 Best of the West National IPA Throwdown Announced

Winners Announced for Best of The West National IPA Throwdown 2025!

San Diego's North Park Beer Co.named Grand Champion IPA. California breweries top the leaderboard with 20 medals; Oregon breweries bring home 11 awards.

Breweries from around the country entered 284 West Coast IPAs into the third annual Best of the West Coast National IPA Throwdown, and results were announced this past Friday at TopWire Hop Project.

Thirty judges from 5 states evaluated the 284 entries in triplicate, making Best of the West one of the most thorough and intensive beer competitions in the world. When all was said and done, 65 beers met the criteria to enter into medal contention, and 51 beers walked away with awards.

The Best of the West is a national competition dedicated to a single style of beer: West Coast IPA. Unlike other competitions, it awards multiple gold and silver medals, recognizing the quality, breadth, and depth of world-class IPA being produced in the country. The winning beers represent genre-leading examples from some of the world's top producers of hoppy beer.

North Park Beer Co. won the Grand Champion IPA award for their flagship beer, Hop-Fu! North Park’s International IPA, Dead as a Doornail, was also named one of the top beers in the competition, taking the trophy in its category. Golden, Colorado's Cannonball Creek won the Runner-Up Grand Champion award for their beer Project Alpha; they were also one of only four breweries to win medals for all 3 of their entries into the competition.

Breweries from 22 states participated in this year's competition, with heavy representation coming from Oregon, California, and Washington. Medal-winning beers came from 7 states-- the 3 West Coast states as well as Texas, Colorado, Ohio, and Missouri. California breweries led the medal count with 20 awards, followed by Oregon at 12. Breweries were limited to 3 entries regardless of size or number of locations. In addition to North Park and Cannonball Creek, notable winners included Breakside Brewery and Brujos, both from Portland, OR, and Auburn, CA’s Moonraker Brewing, all of which won 3 medals-- one for each of their entries. Ghost Town Brewing of Oakland, CA, won the trophy in the Oregon-Hop IPA category for Vine Breaker– a beer made with hops grown by Oregon’s Coleman Farms – for the third year in a row.

The full list of results is available here in slideshow form or here as a sheet, which includes additional competition statistics. Proceeds from Best of the West go to support the Oregon Brewers Guild and aid in our mission of promoting and protecting Oregon beer.