A one man brewery in Nelson has scooped the major awards at the eighth Brewers’ Guild of New Zealand Beer Awards. Townshend Brewery received both the New Zealand Champion Brewery and New Zealand Champion Manufacturer awards. This was an extraordinary achievement for a small operation producing 50,000 litres of beer a year from the family home in Rosedale, particularly given the strong competition.
A record 670 beers from 84 breweries, including 74 New Zealand breweries, were entered in 2014. The judges awarded 61 gold medals, 121 silver medals and 169 bronze medals. Trophies were presented to each beer judged as the Best in Class. The trophy winning breweries were Emerson’s (twice), Monteith’s, Wigram (twice), ParrotDog, Panhead (twice), Three Boys, Renaissance, Townshend, Moa and Behemoth. Zeffer won the cider and perry section.
In other awards, Boston Beer Company (US) was crowned the Champion International Brewery. Tuatara won the Packaging award for their beer “Delicious Neck Immortal Pale Ale” which was brewed with Taika Waititi. The Morton Coutts Trophy for Innovation went to Steve Nally from Invercargill Brewery for packaging low carbonated draught beer in 20 litre bags.
Media/Beer Writer of the Year was awarded to Neil Miller. He is also Head of Content for New Zealand Liquor News.
For more information see – http://brewersguild.org.nz/awards
