April 4-26, 2025, Peaks & Pints pitted 64 of the Pacific Northwest’s best in a malty head-to-head battle of Northwest-style IPAs. We speak, of course, of the Tournament of Beer: Northwest IPAs. The public selected and seeded sixty-four Washington and Oregon-brewed Northwest-style IPAs in February 2025. Some IPAs fell easily by the wayside, either faltering due to a defective mash tun paddle or simply because they faced a superior opponent. Chinook by Chinook, the Pacific Northwest drank its way through the first two rounds followed by the Sweet Wort 16, the Hot Break Eight, the Final Four and today’s Championship Game between E9 Brewing Realize Real Lies and Fort George Brewery Vortex IPA with online voting ending at 5 p.m. and resuming at 6 p.m. live at the Tournament of Beer Party at Peaks & Pints in Tacoma’s Proctor District. The live vote will close at 8 p.m., tallied, and the Northwest IPA champion will be announced at 8:30 p.m. In conjunction with today’s Championship Game, Peaks & Pints offers a sample craft beer flight from E9 Brewing, the champion from Washington state, and Fort George Brewery, the champion from Oregon. Drop by Peaks & Pints today, vote, and enjoy our Peaks & Pints Tournament of Beer Flight: Championship Game. Is the fifth beer on your flight E9 or Fort George? Vote now!

Peaks & Pints Tournament of Beer Flight: Championship Game

E9 Adventures of Zelda

5.7% ABV

E9 Brewing’s barrel-aged saison, brewed and named after head brewer Shane Johns’ second daughter, Zelda, was brewed with fresh hops grown around Tacoma in September. It went into the barrel after stainless primary fermentation, where it sat for 14 months while John’s Sales Director, Donovan Stewart, and Taproom Manager Sean Jackson played the video game, The Legend of Zelda. The barrel-aged saison has a full body and tons of cool peach-lemon aromatics, blended with a tartness as it rolls back over the tongue.

E9 Brewing Realize Real Lies IPA

6.5% ABV

TOURNAMENT OF BEER NORTHWEST IPAS WASHINGTON CHAMPION: In the early ’90s, Dusty Trail converted the historic Engine House No. 9 bar into a brewpub at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Pine Street, officially becoming the first microbrewery in Tacoma. Dick Dickens grabbed the Engine House reins in 2002, bringing in head brewer Doug Tiede. Heads turned, and medals were hung. In 2011, The X Group added the Engine House to their local restaurant empire, with Shane Johns and Donovan Stewart running the kettles and hanging even more medals, primarily for their sours and saisons. In May 2019, they separated the brewery from the restaurant and opened a 15-barrel brewhouse in Tacoma’s Historic Brewery District. Since then, they have cranked out an endless supply of new, delicious IPAs, including Realize Real Lies IPA with late additions of Columbus and Citra, and finishes with double dry hopping of Columbus, Mosaic, and Simcoe hops for dank green notes of blueberry, mango, grapefruit, pine, and Apricot.

Fort George Vortex IPA

7.2% ABV

TOURNAMENT OF BEER NORTHWEST IPAS OREGON CHAMPION: In 2006, Chris Nemlowill and Jack Harris flew to Virginia Beach, Virginia, to salvage an 8.5-barrel Saaz brewing system and drive it across the country to install it in their soon-to-open Fort George Brewery in Astoria. While traveling with the equipment strapped to a flatbed, they met up with a tornado that nearly spread the brewery across a Nebraska cornfield. This became the inspiration behind the name Vortex IPA. With a hearty, unfiltered, unpasteurized organic malt spine that makes way for Simcoe, Apollo, Comet, and Chinook hops, this Northwest IPA has a medium body with a resinous mouthfeel, more grapefruit than pine, and finishes with lingering hop bitterness.

Fort George Fields of Green (COSME)

7.6% ABV

Fort George’s Fields of Green explores hop perceptions, pushing the limits of your lupulin receptors. This periodic, constantly evolving IPA release has landed at Peaks & Pints—on tap and in cans. The latest batch, Codename: COSME, is a seriously opaque, positively citrusy hazy IPA brewed with Idaho 7, Mosaic Cryo, and Comet CGX hops for soft aroma, lingering citrus, and a whole ton of bright tangerine and tropical fruit flavor.

Just like the Tournament of Beer: Northwest IPA Championship Game, you vote on the fifth beer in this Tournament sample flight:

E9 Brewing Holy Diver

10% ABV

This Belgian-style quadruple offers classic characteristics of fruity raisins, dates and candy sugar blended with the bourbon barrel notes.

OR

Fort George One Big Holiday

9% ABV

A smooth, strong, warming spiced barleywine ale brewed with Astoria Chestnuts, wintery spices, and candied citrus peel.

LINK: Peaks & Pints beer and cider cooler inventory