Five medals from the Great American Beer Festival (GABF) were awarded to Bend’s new UPP Liquids en route to being named Best Brewery of the Year in the 251-500 barrel class. But locals are the real winners.
Some 8,315 brews were submitted to GABF, America’s most auspicious beer competition, where 250 of the world’s most critical beer experts awarded 347 medals to the best IPAs, pilsners, porters and more. For UPP (Uniting People and Places) to win five of those medals after being open for less than five months is unprecedented.
Last year, when Bend’s then-newest brewery, Terranaut, earned a GABF medal right out of the gate, that was exciting enough. But in my 2024 round-up of GABF precious medals returning from Denver to Bend last year, I prognosticated, “While 10 Barrel earned six medals overall, I don’t imagine this feat will be replicated in the future. That’s because the award-winning beers were created by 10 Barrel’s innovation team, all of whom were terminated by new owner Tilray.”
While no other upstart brewery has won five medals (in this case, two gold, two silver, one bronze for four intriguing sour beers and an imperial stout), no other new brewery has quite the same pedigree. That’s because UPP is the merger of Immersion Brewing’s ownership of husband-and-wife team Sean Lampe and Amanda Plattner along with most of 10 Barrel Brewing’s innovation team (Tonya Cornett, Ian Larkin, Jose Ruiz, and Ben Shirley), all of them unceremoniously laid off last year by new owner Tilray Brands immediately preceding 10 Barrel’s record-tying haul of six medals at the 2024 GABF.
Relatedly, Terranaut was co-founded by Bryon Pyka, who coincidentally left Cornett’s innovation team before the mass terminations. Furthermore, Deschutes Brewery earned a gold in the non-alcoholic beer category this year, while Monkless won two medals for its Belgian ales. 10 Barrel came up blank.
The reason Central Oregonians are the real winners in all this is because it demonstrates that Bend’s beer scene continues to punch above its weight. California may always take home the most medals, but it’s also home to nearly a thousand breweries, which is nearly double Colorado’s brewery population, hence why their breweries typically are awarded the second-most (and the fact that Colorado is home to GABF, so those beers are the freshest). Oregon placed third, not just in 2025, but throughout GABF’s 39-year history. And after Portland–which boasts double Central Oregon’s brewery count—Bend has amassed the second most medals. That said, our luck has little to do with how many Bend-brewed beers wind up on the GABF podium.
Brewers like Cornett and Larkin are rare. And revered. When news of getting axed from 10 Barrel spread, Cornett—last year’s recipient of the Russell Schehrer Award for Innovation in Craft Brewing, which is analogous to winning an Oscar for Best Director—modestly suggested job offers weren’t pouring in, but that “there was interest” that came her way including “outside of Oregon.’
Yet the Indiana-native who’s called Bend home for 23 years said she was “highly motivated to stay in Bend.” It is a town that is nationally synonymous with craft beer, but it’s no secret that the beer market is struggling. At the same time, one look at the newest players in the local market proves we are living in the best time to be a locavore beer lover. As recently as 2022, Funky Fauna Artisan Ales has excelled in the wide world of tragically-overlooked saisons, while Van Henion Brewing focused on classic lagers. And Terranaut was named Small Brewery of the Year at this year’s Oregon Brewery Awards for its mix of traditional and innovative styles. When the national beer industry is regressing, Bend’s beer scene keeps progressing.
“We’re trying to push the boundaries of beer while bringing the best examples of the big sellers, as well,” says Larkin, who first worked with Cornett pre-10 Barrel at Bend Brewing Co. “We’ve spent 15 fricking years together. We finish each other’s sentences.”
Added Cornett, UPP “is where you come for something different.”
Though UPP’s two best-selling beers are America’s two most popular styles, an IPA and a Mexican lager, the brewing team is convinced there’s unmet demand for approachable sour beers with novel flavors. Gold medal-winning Moments Made features blueberry and rose tea, while silver medal-winning Flower Child is a gose brewed with peach, chamomile and cardamom.
“Compared to (our) 10 Barrel Sours, such as Apricot or Cucumber Crush,” noted Larkin, “our flavor combinations make (those) look like training wheels.”
That said, one of UPP’s medals was awarded to a cucumber gose that tastes even better than Cucumber Crush did back when the highly-decorated team that created it garnered three GABF and three World Beer Cup medals for it. The name of the new one is UPP Yours.
This article appears in the Source October 30, 2025.
MAKE LOCAL JOURNALISM HAPPEN
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
