Peaks & Pints pitted the Pacific Northwest’s best Northwest-style IPAs for three weeks in a head-to-head battle of malts and hops. We speak, of course, of the Tournament of Beer: Northwest IPAs. Sixty-four Northwest-style IPAs brewed in the lands of Oregon and Washington were selected and seeded by the public throughout February, separated into four geographical regions: Northern Washington, Southern Washington, Northern Oregon, and Southern Oregon, with only one IPA per brewery. Through voting on Peaks’ Instagram Stories, IPA drinkers have picked winners until the best Northwest-style IPA is crowned, which will be tomorrow at the Tournament of Beer Party at Peaks and Pints in Tacoma’s Proctor District. The final two IPAs – Oregon versus Washington – will battle on our Instagram stories until 5 p.m. then the voting will halt and move to the Championship Party for live voting from 6 to 8 p.m. with the final two beers pouring from our Western red cedar tap log with the champion brewery receiving a permanent handle at Peaks & Pints through the spring and summer 2025. Today, it’s the Tournament’s Final Four! Swing by Peaks & Pints and taste the four Northwest-style IPAs before making your vote as we present Peaks & Pints Tournament of Beer Flight: Northwest IPAs Final Four.

Peaks & Pints Tournament of Beer Flight: Northwest IPAs Final Four

Georgetown Lucille IPA

7% ABV

NUMBER ONE SEED, NORTHERN WASHINGTON REGION: The Lucille IPA from Georgetown Brewing got its name because the original idea was to name it “The Georgetown Hoe” after a brewing tool that resembles a garden hoe. However, the brewers ran into resistance and ultimately decided on Lucille, inspired by the sexy girl washing the car and putting on a show for the chain gang as they worked along the roadside in the movie Cool Hand Luke. Lucille, the beer, is hoppy, floral, balanced, and has a lingering but palatable bitterness. When those first emerald-green cylinders of Lucille IPA rolled off Georgetown Brewing’s assembly line in May 2017, it heralded a new era for the brewery. It’s been a treat to drink the Lucille Northwest IPA out of the can while mowing the lawn, enjoying the hop combination of Columbus, Cascade, Simcoe, Citra, Comet for a classic Pacific Northwest style IPA with flavors and aromas of fresh pine, navel orange zest, mild strawberry, and an appropriate bitterness.

E9 Realize Real Lies

6.5% ABV

NUMBER 2 SEED, SOUTHERN WASHINGTON REGION: 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 E9 Brewing 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

NUMBER ONE SEED, NORTHERN OREGON REGION: 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.

Boneyard RPM IPA

6.5% ABV

NUMBER ONE SEED, SOUTHERN OREGON REGION: In the late 1980s, Tony Lawrence arrived in Bend, Oregon, for the snowboarding at Mt. Bachelor, but stayed for the dish pit at Deschutes Brewery. Head brewer John Harris knew Lawrence was more than a dishwasher; soon, he was washing kegs. Lawrence quickly rose through the brewhouse ranks and in 2001 left to learn more at Rio Salado Brewing in Tempe under Tim Gossack and Firestone Walker under Matt Brynildson. He returned to Bend, pieced together a 5-barrel “boneyard” of old equipment he collected from 13 different breweries around the country, and alongside co-founders Clay and Melodee Storey, brewed the first batch of Boneyard Beer in May 2010. In July 2018, Boneyard opened a new taproom at 1955 NE Division Street in Bend; the location was formerly a Chinese restaurant, a Texas Hold’em poker room, and a short-lived taqueria. In March 2021, Deschutes Brewery and Boneyard Beer announced a new joint venture, forming a unique, Bend-based, local-to-local, craft-to-craft partnership. Boneyard’s flagship RPM IPA has a sweeter, malty side created with pale malt, Munich malt, Aromatic malt, Vienna malt, and dextrose with a hint of honey and caramel that transitions quickly to a very solid, but not overdone bitterness with the mid-palate flavors of pine, grapefruit, apricots and faint honey.

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