The Brewers Association hosted its 42nd annual Great American Beer Festival (GABF) in Colorado last weekend, bringing to Denver more than 40,000 fans and selections from over 500 breweries from the United States and Puerto Rico. This year, Forbes reported, 9,200 beers and ciders were judged. On Sunday, the Brewers Association unveiled its list of 2024’s best beers, including the best IPAs. Based on the results, it may be a good time to plan a trip to California.
India Pale Ales comprise a robust 46 percent of the craft beer industry’s profits. That love was apparent in the GABF’s eight IPA-related categories. Three of those categories—Juicy/Hazy IPA, West Coast IPA, and American Style IPA—were the competition’s most-entered styles of brew.
In the Juicy/Hazy IPA category, Ambitious Ales took top honors with their Professional Human Being. It boasts a creamy, citrus-and-tropical-inflected body with a 7.2 percent ABV. It currently has no national distribution, so the only place you can check it out is at Ambitious Ales’ taproom in Long Beach, CA.
But it may be worth making that trek to Long Beach, as the West Coast IPA gold-medal winner also hails from the coastal destination. Trademark Brewing’s Codebreaker (seven percent ABV) is a crisp floral option with notes of apricot and pine cone. Codebreaker doesn’t have national distribution either, but it can be ordered through Trademark’s website and shipped throughout California.
As for American-Style IPA, that category’s gold medal went, appropriately, to a beer called Competition from Highland Park Brewery, which is located in downtown Los Angeles about an hour’s drive from Long Beach. With a 7.3 percent ABV, Competition is a hoppy option, maltier in the tradition of American IPAs, with hints of mango. It can be shipped through Highland Park’s website throughout Southern California, which is just one more reason to plan a trip.
You can check out the full list of winners from the 2024 Great American Beer Awards here.
