SIBA winners announced at national BeerX

Sixty local brewers were recognised on 14 March as winners in the SIBA National Beer Competition 2013, as the best cask, keg and bottled beers were unveiled at SIBA’s first ever BeerX event in Sheffield.

Top honours went to Convivial London Pubs, Cairngorm Brewery Company and Quantock Brewery, named as the SIBA Supreme Champions 2013 in craft beer in keg, bottled beer and cask beer respectively.

The Supreme Champion beers are: The Lamb Brewery Oatmeal Stout, a 5% ABV stout from Convivial London Pubs; Black Gold, a 4.4% bottled beer from Cairngorm Brewery Company and Wills Neck, a 4.3% ABV best bitter from Quantock Brewery.

The winning beers were chosen at a judging session, held yesterday to kick off BeerX.  A panel of around 100 brewers, industry experts, local licensees and beer enthusiasts assessed over 200 beers – the first time that cask, keg and bottled beers have been judged on the same day, under one roof.  The Gold Award winners in each category were then judged again to find the SIBA Supreme Champions. 

SIBA chief executive Julian Grocock, said, “As the number of brewers within SIBA grows, so does the number of beers competing for the top prize.  We set as little restriction as possible on the number of beers at our seven regional heats, and welcome beers from all our brewing members at this stage. 

“Winning at a regional heat and progressing to the national finals is an achievement in itself and the quality of beers judged yesterday was of the highest standard, as all our judges would attest.  To then come through to win one of the national awards is a real achievement and our hearty congratulations go to all the winners announced today.”

Rob Rainey, owner and head brewer at Quantock Brewery said, “We’ve won awards before, but never anything on this scale. Having our beers recognised by our peers, and winning against so many other fine beers, is absolutely superb.”

From Cairngorm Brewery Company, brewing director Sean Tomlinson said, “This is a wonderful award for us to win. We’ve just commissioned a bottling hall, so we know that we’ll be bottling a fantastic beer.”

All Bronze, Silver and Gold award winners received their certificates and trophies on stage at BeerX from Neil Morrissey.

Caption to image: at the SIBA National Beer Competition 2013 ( l-r) Neil Morrissey; Sean Tomlinson of Cairngorm Brewery Company; Rob Rainey and Cheryl Ford, brewer and brewster at Quantock Brewery and SIBA chief executive Julian Grocock

Supreme Champions

Craft beer in keg

Bronze: Williams Bros Caesar Augustus

Silver: Thornbridge Jaipur IPA

Gold: Convivial London Pubs Lamb Brewery Oatmeal Stout

Bottled Beer

Bronze: Blue Monkey Ape Ale

Silver: Oakham Ales Citra

Gold: Cairngorm Brewery Black Gold

Cask beer

Bronze: Kirkstall Brewery Dissolution IPA

Silver: Cotswold Spring OSB

Gold: Quantock Brewery Wills Neck