Kendall with the local slant: https://washingtonbeerblog.com/nw-breweries-earn-17-medals-at-the-2023-u-s-open-beer-championship
Er, ahhhh... an Australian style pale ale category? Ummm..... sure, ok. At least at the places I've visited, Sunriver always called their Bondi Beach Party beer a WCIPA. Australian pale ale... WCIPA... vive le difference, non?
Style (category) guidelines for many competitions go by hop country origin, and category choice is determined by the entrant rather than the competition. So Sunriver decided (correctly) that Australian Pale was where that beer was most competitive, even if they label it WCIPA for the public. When we used the BA guidelines for BOCBA, it was a similar situation, and the continued fracturing was one of the reasons we developed our own guidelines. For example, the 2023 GABF has geographical categories for West Coast, American, New Zealand, and English IPAs. They have an Australian Pale Ale category but not Australian IPA, and of course these are in addition to Pale, Strong Pale, and Imperial variations for American and Hazy/Juicy families, not to mention Session IPA and Experimental IPA categories. It got a little rococo for my taste.
