Devon-based Utopian Brewery has scooped a world’s best style title at the World Beer Awards, with Rainbock winning the seasonal maibock category.
Utopian was one of only four English breweries to pick up a ‘world best’ award. It comes on the back of a haul for the brewery in the earlier country awards round. Then, it picked up three golds for Frankishes Rotbier, Bohemian British Lager, and the Rainbock. There was silver for its Premium Lager and bronze for Harlequin Pils.
“We were absolutely delighted to pick up the five medals in round one as there is very strong competition from both big and small breweries across the country,” said Utopian managing director, Richard Archer.
“But to win a world best style award is off-the-scale good and thoroughly deserved recognition of the outstanding talent of our head brewer, Jeremy Swainson, and his amazing team of James Foster, Ben Bourn, Simon Shakespeare, Colin Blick and Graham Reynolds. It takes a full team effort to produce a world-beating beer, and we are blessed that we have such an amazing one.”
Jeremy said: “The Maibock is quite a challenging beer style to brew, and as it only gets brewed once a year you don’t get any practice. It needs a lot of patience and attention to look after it through those long winter months, so it is truly a team effort.
“I’m super-pleased for the team to get this recognition for all the hard work they put in and their total dedication to making great beer.”
In only its fifth year of brewing, Utopian has established itself as a brand that’s driving innovation in brewing, in particular creating international-style lagers with only 100% British-grown ingredients.
Its five medal-winning brews showcase a huge array of classical lager styles and prove that great lager can be made with only home grown malt and hops.
“The Rainbock holds a special place for us as we first brewed it in our start-up year, January 2020,” said Richard. “By the time it was ready to pack, after 100 days in tank, we were in lockdown and the world had become a very different place.
“Rainbock was a really important beacon for us though that time, helping us spread the world about our lagers and broaden awareness. It played a big part in helping us get through those early months of the pandemic, and so to now have it recognised on the world stage is a lovely reminder of its importance to us as a business, and also, of course, of what an amazing beer it is.”
