Salopian Brewery, Stroud Brewery, and Vale of Glamorgan Brewery (VOG) have taken home the three top spots in one of the UK’s biggest beer competitions – the SIBA Wales & West Independent Beer Awards 2024.
Salopian Brewery was named the best of the best in the cask beer competition, taking the Overall Champion Gold Award, with Stroud Brewery overall winners in keg, and VOG Brewery being named overall champs in the Bottle & Can awards.
The awards are run by the Society of Independent Brewers and Associates prior to the opening of the popular SIBA Ludlow Beer Festival at Ludlow Castle and judge the best independent craft beers across a variety of style categories before overall ‘Gold Champions’ are selected in the separate ‘Cask’, ‘Keg’, and ‘Bottle & Can’ competitions.
Salopian Brewery’s ‘Port in a Storm’, a 4.7% Porter which wowed judges in the British Dark Beers category before going on to beat the other cask category winners in the final round judging.
Collecting the award for Overall Cask Champion was Salopian Founder Wilf Nelson, who had this to say on their win; “Really, really chuffed, it’s our last year in Wales and West and we have always loved being a part of the region. We are seen as the most active region of SIBA and will miss it. Whilst I’m looking forward to the Midlands, I am really proud to have won on our last appearance in the Wales & West competition.”
A change in the SIBA Regional boundaries means Wales will go it alone as a standalone region in next years awards, with the ‘West’ brewers in England now moving into SIBA’s Midlands region, making these that last ‘SIBA Wales & West’ Awards.
The second big winner of the day was Stroud Brewery’s ‘Big Cat’ in the Keg beer competition, a 4.5% stout brewed with all organic ingredients. Mike Powell from Stroud accepted the award; “We’re very proud, there has been a lot of awards awarded today which shows there’s a lot of good beer and the level gets better every year, so to be an overall champion is amazing. We’re humbled. We are really pleased for the other winners as well.”
Making it a trio of dark beers to win the day’s top awards it was Vale of Glamorgan (VOG Brewery) who were named the best bottle or canned beer with their hefty 11.5% ‘Sith Order Barrel Strength’ imperial stout. Craig Edmunds of VOG commented; “Really chuffed, we won champion cask last year so winning champion bottle this year is amazing. It’s a big beer, 11.5% and aged in Penderyn whiskey barrels.”
SIBA’s National Competitions Committee Chair Anneli Baxter, and Director in the Midlands region, praised the quality of this year’s winners; “The SIBA Wales & West Independent Beer Awards are not only our biggest judging of this awards season – with three packed cask, keg and bottle & can competitions taking place together – but they are the last year before Wales seperates into its own new SIBA region. So huge congratulations to all of this year’s brewers who have taken home Gold in these historic awards. Good luck to those who become part of the Wales region next year, and welcome to the Midlands region to the rest!”
. All of the category winners will now go forwards to the National Finals at BeerX in Liverpool early next year, to battle it out against winning beers from across the UK.
