BrewNZ Champions!

WOW! Champion NZ Brewery!  

We're pretty gobsmacked, words are difficult to find to describe how big an honour this is. Furthermore, considering the fact that 8 Wired has been going for less than 2 years and I have only been brewing commercially for 3 years, humble is probably the best word to describe how we are feeling.  

The result is a huge, soccer ball sized cherry on top of a fantastic week in Wellington. I spent 3 long days judging for the awards, but of course I didn't judge our own beer. Overall, the beers where all really good. The quality of the entries were greater than ever, which was proved by the fact that 37% received a medal, the highest percentage ever. This was also reflected by the fact that the run for the championship trophy was extremely tight: The organizers had to go down to the 8th medal to determine the winner between us and Emerson's. Lion Nathan was a close 3rd and Tuatara and Three Boys must have followed closely after that. Sprig and Fern won 10 medals, more than any other brewery. So it was definitely no easy win and next year I'm sure someone else will walk away with the top honours.  

Finally I will celebrate the fact that one of the best beers ever made in New Zealand finally got the credit it deserves: Elemental Porter from our allies at Renaissance Brewing has long been loved by beer geeks around the world and this year it finally won a gold medal. Justice has been served.  

Full results can be found here  

The week finished up with the annual celebration of great beer, Beervana. This year the event has been bought by David Cryer, who also supplies specialty malts to the NZ craft brewers. The effort he and his team put into the event is simply amazing and the event was better than ever. If you didn't go, you missed out on sampling more than 200 different beers from all over NZ and Australia and food from Wellington's top restaurateurs. So make sure you get tickets well in advance next year:)