Salcombe Brewery’s Speyside Island Street Porter has been named as the best beer of its kind in Britain at the SIBA Digital Beer Awards.
Brewery founder, John Tiner, said: “This is an amazing tribute to the creativity and technical prowess of our brilliant young brewers, led by Sam Beaman, in just our third full year of operation.”
Sam added: “Our Speyside barrel-aged porter has picked up gold in both the regional and national competitions, making it the best beer in its category in the UK. This would be great news for the brewery at any point in time, but especially poignant during this challenging period.”
Salcombe Brewery’s range of barrel-aged porter ales is the latest development from the dynamic young brewery. The beer will be sold as in presentation sets and will be launched in the autumn in good time for Christmas.
Sam said: ”We are very excited about our new range of barrel-aged porter ales. We decided to age our Island Street Porter in three different types of barrel: a Speyside whisky barrel, a bourbon barrel, and a Madeira cask. The idea is that the wood in each barrel exudes different flavours, which balance well with our porter.
“We leave the barrels in our cellar for six months for these flavours to develop, then the aged porter is hand-bottled in numbers limited to 200 bottles per barrel and sold individually or as a pack of three.
“Porters are different from stout. They have a slightly sweeter finish and they are not quite as heavy or full bodied, making them more sessionable than stouts. British maltsters are working hard to develop more roasted malts and I think that will play a part in the resurgence of more traditional dark beers.”
The brewery’s popular golden ale, Shingle Bay, was also recognised, being awarded a silver in SIBA’s regional awards.
