Utopian Brewing and Moor Beer Co have taken home the top two awards at the newly launched South West Indie Beer Awards, at MaltingsFest in Newton Abbot.
Rich Archer (right), co-founder of Utopian Brewing, receives the gold award for best keg beer from Newton Abbot MP Martin Wrigley. Photograph: SIBA
It was Utopian’s big and rich German-style Doppelbock which was overall champion in the keg beer competition. Moor’s Old Freddy Walker took gold in the cask awards.
“It’s fantastic for us to win, it’s a really marvellous recognition of the work the guys do day in, day out in the brewery, just trying to make really great beers for people to enjoy,” said Rich Archer, co-founder of Utopian Brewing, which is based in Devon.
“We’ve been doing this now for six years and having great fun doing it, but to win this is really the pinnacle in the South West for us and everyone is just delighted.”
Doppelbock is a strong, dark lager, perhaps a style that many beer drinkers may not have tried before. But Rich added “Great beer is great beer, and the Doppelbock style is just a really great way to show off delicious malt flavours and complexity. I’d really recommend people give it a try.”
Formerly called the SIBA Independent Beer Awards, they have been renamed the Indie Beer Awards, to align with the Indie Beer campaign launched last year by the organisation.
“Huge congratulations to all of this year’s winners and, in particular, Utopian and Moor, who took home our overall golds in keg and cask respectively,” said Neil Walker, of SIBA.
“The overall champions really are the best of the best in the competition, having already been named their beer style category champion and then going up against all of the other beer style winners in a final-round judging.
“It’s very tough to do, and the brewery teams should be hugely proud of what they’ve achieved with these world-class beers.”
