BrewNZ Judges find good taste

Media Release
September 14, 2007
Source: BrewNZ

We’re spoilt for choice when it comes to world-class beers. BrewNZ’s international beer judging panel has just found 16 locally available beers worthy of gold.

The 13 strong judging panel spent three days taste testing 184 beers to find 81 of our best medal winning beers, which were announced at the 2007 BrewNZ awards in Wellington on Wednesday 12th September.

Last year, just six of the 170 beers presented were judged to be of world class gold medal standard.

Chief steward Stu McKinlay, who has been involved in the BrewNZ awards for the past three years, said the quality of the beers was improving from year to year as brewers strived for the ultimate prize.

This year entries came from across New Zealand as well as the USA and Australia where word about the quality of the Kiwi craft beer industry was quickly spreading, Mr McKinlay said.

“These results will show that our smaller breweries are coming up to the bench mark that a couple of the more well-known craft breweries have set over the last couple of years.”

“It’s a nice spread for the best in class that we’ve not seen over the past few years, both in terms of breweries and the size and type of brewery,” Mr McKinlay said.

It’s not a matter of first, second and third. Beers win medals based on their individual merits and are judged against each other only when it comes to ‘best in class’. In some classes the best medal is silver or bronze, while in others there are several golds.

A gold medal is defined as a world-class beer that exemplifies its style, displaying the proper balance of taste, aroma and appearance. A silver medal is an excellent beer and a bronze denotes a fine example.

Beers are judged blind and to qualify for the ‘best in class’ trophy must be commercially available in New Zealand.

Full results are available at www.brewnz.co.nz.

Ends.

For further information:

BrewNZ
David Cryer
0800 625 833