So, it’s 7:45am on a Thursday morning, James and I are standing at platform 5 at Crewe station, on our way to begin drinking a huge selection of British craft beers in a little over 2 and a half hours, yes… the plan was to begin drinking at 10:30am.
Now this might be frowned upon under normal circumstances, but it’s ok! because the destination was the historic market town of Ludlow nestled on the edge of the Shropshire Hills, as we’d been fortunate enough again this year to have been invited back as judges at the SIBA (Society of Independent Brewers) Wales & West Beer Awards. Held annually as part of the Ludlow Spring Festival in this quaint and beautiful town and well, there’s no way we could say no to that!
Some may see this as being sent away to sit and sample a whole host of great beers for the majority of the day, there’s also a serious side to these awards. Breweries are having a very tough time at the moment; we are losing them on an almost weekly basis with over thirty closing their doors already this year with another 5 currently at risk. One at-risk brewery which may surprise some is the very well-known Yorkshire-based Black Sheep.
Winning awards is massively important to breweries, should they nab an award it not only makes their beers stand out in the crowd, but it also gives them a broader opportunity to get their beer out into the market. Take our Award Winners Collection as an example; it's one of our best sellers purely because customers respond to awards. If a beer is not deemed worthy of an award the brewers get access to the feedback from the judges and taking these comments on board allows them to tweak the recipes and & make improvements, hopefully, to return next year and scoop themselves an award or two.
We’d both been selected to judge rounds 1 & 2 along with the prestigious final round, where all the beers deemed worthy of an award in the opening rounds are then judged again to establish individual category winners, as well as the overall winner for cask beer and one we were particularly interested in, the champion bottled\canned beer.
Due to the number of entries round 1 saw us both sampling lots of pales in the ‘Cask Pale’ category spread over 2 judging tables, where both tables had to give their opinion on well over 10 beers each. Round 2 saw James hitting the heavy stuff in the ‘Imperial & Strong Beer’ category where, unknown to him at the time he encountered one of the overall champions. Whereas I was placed on the ‘Bottle & Can Speciality IPA’ table where I believe I sampled a gold medal winner in Purple Moose’s High Hops.
You might be thinking, how do you not know what beers you have tried? Well to avoid any favour towards individual breweries, beers or styles, the beers are judged totally blind, the only way of identifying the beers being a secret SIBA code placed against each beer… unknown to the judges. Then afterward, when the awards are presented by the ever-present & knowledgeable Master of Ceremonies Buster (himself a multi award-winning head brewer) try and recall if any particular beer stood out, if it did chances are it had picked up a medal.
As the awards came to an end it was time to crown the overall champions, the worthy winner Geipel Brewery grabbed the overall bottle & can award for their fantastic Bock, a stronger European style of dark lager which due to its high gravity, leaves lots flavour and sweetness behind.
The beer that practically stole the awards, winning 4 golds, and one silver along with the overall Champion of the Cask Beer Competition was the stunning ‘Jedi Order’ from the Vale of Glamorgan Brewery, a Russian Imperial Stout weighing in at a hefty 8.4%, although drinking it you’d have no idea of its punchy ABV. Having had the good fortune of trying this in the final round I can tell you it was smooth, rich, delicious, and really moreish.
If you happen to encounter either of these beers in your local pub or friendly bottle shop I urge you to give them a try, you won’t be disappointed.
We had a cracking day in sunny Ludlow and am already eagerly crossing my fingers for another invite next year!
The full list of winners from the day can be found here
Cheers!
Chris
