Rural Oregon: Where the GABF Medals Roam

Everyone in the beer community is talking about the just-completed Great American Beer Festival. Here in Oregon, there are handshakes all around. Our breweries brought home 25 medals, third on the list behind California (52) and Colorado (46).

First, congrats to everyone who won a medal, any kind of medal, whether your brewery resides in Oregon or elsewhere. It's no small task. As Jeff Alworth says in his wrap-up, it's a challenge just getting into the GABF. There are something like 2,500 breweries competing for roughly 600 spots. Ye gods.

Some have suggested that the Brewers Association adopt regional competitions to filter entries for the national event. Don't hold your breath. There's a lot of money being made just the way things work now, and there are logistical challenges involved in putting on regional competitions. Near-term changes are unlikely.

As I looked at the list of Oregon winners, the first thing I noticed is that Portland breweries are not well-represented. Of the 25 Oregon medals, Portland breweries picked up just six of them...roughly 25 percent. I was surprised by that, given we have more than 50 breweries in the city. It turns out I shouldn't have been.

I decided to do an analysis of where Oregon's GABF medal winners have come from over the past five years. Sure, I could have gone back 10 years...or 20. I chose five because I'm most interested in recent history. Be my guest if you want to do a more extensive analysis. The data is out there all the way back to 1983.

Of the 95 GABF medals Oregon has brought home since 2009, 67 (70 percent, if you prefer) were won by breweries outside Portland. In actual fact, Portland breweries have done fairly well the last two years, winning six medals this year and eight in 2012. Before that, the best recent year was 2009...when Portland breweries won nine of Oregon's 22 medals. The bad years were 2011 (2) and 2010 (3).

I wanted to know more. I wondered who the hell is winning all these medals. So I looked through the yearly GABF results and tabulated the number of medals won by the various breweries around the state. I don't want to say I was shocked, but I was surprised.

It turns out five breweries have been fairly dominant over the course of the last five years: Barley Brown's (aka Baker City Brewing), Bend Brewing, Deschutes Brewing, Pelican Brewing and Rogue. Together, these five breweries have accounted for 56 (or 59 percent) of the 95 medals GABF medals won by Oregon breweries.

Boiling it down further, the top three accounted for 41 of the 95 medals (43 percent). It may come as a surprise to learn that the top medal winner is Barley Brown's of Baker City, which has won 16 medals. Deschutes is next with 13; Pelican has 12. Rounding out the top five, Bend Brewing has eight medals and Rogue has seven.

It's hardly a surprise to see Deschutes among the top medal winners. It's a huge operation and they've been making good beer for a long time. The big surprises are Barley Brown's, Bend Brewing and Pelican. These operations are small and two of the three are rather remote. When was the last time you visited Baker City? Pacific City? Alrighty then.

In case you're wondering, the top Portland brewery over the last five years, in terms of GABF medals, is Laurelwood with six. Widmer and Breakside both have four. Hopworks and The Commons, which added two this year, both have three.

What do these stats mean? Mostly they mean Oregon's rural brewers have dominated the GABF medal hunt in recent years. Why has this been the case? I have no idea. I was originally thinking about linking Portland's relative lack of success to the fact that style barriers have completely collapsed here. But that seems a bit of a stretch. There has to be more to it.

One final point with regard to Barley Brown's/Baker City Brewing. These guys won three golds, two silvers and a bronze this year. They were also named  best Very Small Brewing Company and Very Small Brewing Company Brewer. Seeing them win medals in highly competitive categories (like American Style IPA) shouldn't really come as a surprise. Not if you look at their recent history. They're in a groove.