Clean, well-brewed mainstream beers earn top award for DB
BY GEOFF GRIGGS
Relevant offers
Beer
In case you missed the week's big beer news, DB is New Zealand's champion brewer for 2010.
The country's second-largest brewer prevailed at this year's BrewNZ Awards in Wellington. This year's competition, the ninth, attracted a record 466 entries from more than 40 breweries worldwide and was judged over 3 1/2 days by 22 expert judges.
It would be fair to say DB's win – announced at an awards dinner at Wellington's Duxton Hotel last Thursday – raised a few eyebrows. It shouldn't have; DB excels in making clean, well-brewed beers, albeit in a comparatively narrow range of largely mainstream styles. This year it cleaned up in each of those classes.
The BrewNZ Champion Brewery award is made to the brewer whose three top-ranked beers achieve the highest points score. Three points are awarded for a gold medal, two for a silver and one for a bronze. In the event of a tie, each brewery's fourth-ranked beer is then taken into consideration. That's exactly what happened last week.
For the first time in the event's history, the top three highest-scoring breweries were divided by just two points. DB clinched the supreme award with two gold medals and two silvers. Export 33 took a gold in the low carbohydrate category and Tui Blond won a gold in the New Zealand lager class. Meanwhile. Tui was awarded a silver in the New Zealand draught category (no, it's not an india pale ale!) and Monteith's Black, a German-style dark lager, was awarded a silver in the European lagers category. Well done to DB's brewing team.
Snapping at DB's heels was Christchurch's Three Boys Brewery, whose medal haul included golds for two dark ales, Oyster Stout and Pineapple Lump Porter. The latter won a hotly-contested festive beers category which, this year, featured experimental brews flavoured with indigenous ingredients. While most brewers saw this as an opportunity to brew with native flora such as horopito, kawakawa, pikopiko and kumara, Three Boys' Ralph Bungard took a more left-field approach by using Pascall's Pineapple Lumps!
Three Boys also won a silver for its Golden Ale to match DB's medal tally after three beers, but subsequently lost the battle for Champion Brewery by a single point when its fourth beer, Three Boys Wheat, only managed a bronze. Nevertheless it was a remarkable achievement for the amiable Bungard and his Woolston brewery.
Just one point behind Three Boys was Steam Brewing Company. The Auckland-based brewery, which supplies the Cock & Bull pub chain, struck gold with Fuggles, an English-style bitter, and Monks Habit, its multi-award-winning American-influenced (but New Zealand-hopped) amber ale. The brewery's third-ranking brew, Dirty Blonde, a wheat beer, was awarded a bronze.
Other trophy and gold medal winners included Rotorua's Croucher Brewing, for its Pilsner; Blenheim's 8 Wired Brewing, for The Big Smoke – a smoked porter; and Epic Brewing, for its Barrel Aged IPA. Christchurch's Twisted Hop won the cask conditioned category and Bay of Plenty's Aotearoa Brewing took the packaging trophy for its Mata range.
Last year's champion brewer, Emerson's, won the Wheat Beers trophy for its Dunkelweiss in a medal haul that included five silvers and four bronzes, and a hotly-contested cider and perry category saw a win for Bulmers Pear Cider.
My congratulations to all of this year's winning brewers. New Zealand beer and cider just get better and better.
Cheers!
Full results of the 2010 BrewNZ Awards are available at brewersguild.org.nz.
- The Marlborough Express
Sponsored links
Newest First
Oldest First
Mr D. I'm pretty sure the people's choice winner was Mike's Whisky Porter.
Mike's Organic Whisky Porter won the people's choice... and for those in CHCH Three Boy's Pineapple Lump Porter which won the festive brew is on tap at Poms.
List of judges is available in the PDF catalogue of results on Beervana website also which contains all medals and trophies won....
Click here: http://brewersguild.org.nz/news/2010/liquorland-brewnz-awards-2010-winners-announced
What the hell? Tui Blonde and Export 33 are flavourless crap excuses for beer! The BrewNZ Awards is either corrupt or the judges are all first year students who think watery cheap beer is good, let alone drinkable.
There were some fine beers exhibited this year. I especially enjoyed the beers that were on hand pull (beer the way it should be :) - but could do with toning down the strength a wee bit) - also, Arrows's 'Christmas Ale' was amazing (just like drinking a Christmas cake).
For those who followed the passport trail - for me, the best was the Moa Five Hop (again on hand pull) served at Pollux (old Opera House).
Does anyone know who won the peoples choice award after the show?
Can we have a list of the judges please and who they work for?
Tui Blonde for the win, yea right!
Hmmmm beer. Wonder how did Double Brown went this year?
Dan and Simon, to my knowledge some Monteith's beers - mostly Original and the limited-release seasonal brews - are still being produced at the Greymouth brewery but everything else is brewed elsewhere (Waitemata, Timaru and Mangatainoka). Cheers!
Well done for the Monteith's Black for sure, but the others were just winning in classes made so the mainstream breweries could enter. It's like holding a burger competition, adding a 'flavourless and forgettable' section and then crowning McDonalds the champion burger maker.
Congratulations to all the craft brewers that entered for yet again showing that New Zealand can actually produce some world class beers that are full of flavour, are interesting and enjoyable.
Dan - The West Coast Monteiths brewery was closed, but has since reopened I believe. But brewing of Monteiths is an Auckland thing now.
I guess marketing can win awards, export 33 and tui blonde are over-hyped rubbish beers.
I wouldn't be surprised if ALL of the entered DB beers were brewed in Auckland. They almost always enter in 330ml bottles (I'm an ex head steward) and I would imagine they are almost exclusively coming out of one or two of their larger sites (Waitemata and Timaru).
Mr D -
Mike's Whisky Porter apparently won the people's choice. Yeastie Boys' Punkadiddle (3.7%) will be on around town soon (probably already at Bar Edward). Almost always some Townshend or Twisted Hop beer on handpump at Hashigo Zake, with Tuatara (and others) at Malthouse and Bar Edward.
Tyre1l -
Judges are listed at http://brewersguild.org.nz/sites/brewersguild.org.nz/files/Liquorland%20BrewNZ%20Awards%202010%20Catalogue%20of%20Results.pdf
Loads of international judges, a pretty good array of types of judges (analysts, style gurus, big brewers, craft brewers) but unfortunately a couple of huge ommissions (such as the writer of this article.
No judge jusges beer from a brewery they are associated to (for example, Soren Eriksen owns 8 Wired and brews for Rennaissance so would not judge beers from either of those places).