Pfriem Family Brewing is ‘Best Large Brewery’

“I can’t tell you how proud I am of this team, from warehouse to brewing to operations, to tasting rooms to barrel aging,” Josh Pfriem said to the audience of several hundred at Revolution Hall, pointing to “the camaraderie and special thing we have” as breweries collectively.

“Good beer, good people, and well-run businesses will rise and we will see growth again,” Pfriem said.

Pfriem said later in a telephone interview, “This is so validating, It feels like all things are lining up,” pointing to the near-simultaneous winning the OBA award and opening the brewery’s first location outside of Hood River, the renovated former city hall in Milwaukie, which opened as a restaurant on April 7.

“We made it for the people, to provide a great spot for the community,” he said.

“What got me enthused about making beer was being in a great spot for drinking beer, with great people,” said Pfriem, who founded the brewery in 2012 in the Halyard Building on Portway Drive.

Pfriem said he views the top award “as an affirmation not just of us at pFriem but of craft beer in general. As any of us do better, we all do better.

“It’s a matter of great beer, great customers and running a great business. You’ve got to do all these things to make it work well,” he said.

Medium Brewery of the Year was Coldfire of Eugene, and the Small Brewery honor went to Terranaut of Bend.

Based on scoring, the Large Brewery award came down to pFriem or the Portland-based Breakside, which won six awards including one gold. Breakside is a neighbor, with its established taproom in Milwaukie, as well as a collaborator, with the two breweries releasing a New Zealand-style IPA.

“We’re all good friends,” Pfriem said.

Pfriem also took the Central Oregon Regional Brewery of the Year award, and silvers in three other categories: Imperial IPAs, for its Triple IPA; American IPA for its IPA; and Pilsner, for its pilsner.

Bronze awards came in Hoppy Lagers for its West Coast Pilsner and the Light German/European Lager, for its Czech lager.

Judges sampled 1,094 entries from 104 breweries; there were 357 entries in the IPA and Hoppy categories and 299 in lagers.

Ferment, Freebridge win

Two other Gorge breweries won OBA medals.

Ferment Brewing of Hood River took bronze in the Barrel-Aged Stout category for its Imperial Stout 2024 (13.6 ABV) described on its website as “aged in a mix of whiskey barrels and red wine barrels and imparts notes of coffee, dried fruits, juicy berries, leather and oak.”

Freebridge Brewing of The Dalles earned a bronze in the American Sour Beers category for its Slap & Pickle Dill Pickle Gose, a 4.9 ABV brew that also won Best of Craft Beer Gold and Double Gold in the 2024 Sip Magazine Northwest Beer Awards. Slap & Pickle is kettle-soured with yogurt and organic coriander, kosher sea salt and pickle juice (and listed at 4.2 ABV by Untapped).