Ludlow Brewery scooped two prestigious awards at the Society of Independent Brewers – SIBA – West and Wales beer festival.
One of the craft brewery’s lower strength ales Blonde (4.0%) was awarded Gold in the hotly contested Cask Best Bitters & Pale Ales category, earning its place in the national finals.
And the independent sustainable brewery picked up Silver in the Strong Ale category for Stairway (5.0%), the highest-strength beer brewed at the converted railway shed in Ludlow.
The competition judges a huge range of beers from across the region in a number of styles. The competition took place on Friday 12th May at the Ludlow Spring Festival held at Ludlow Castle.
Ludlow Brewery founder Gary Walters cited a series of best practice guidelines and commitment to quality as instrumental to its success.
Commented Gary: “We are absolutely delighted with this achievement. Any SIBA award represents industry recognition; blind judging is conducted by industry peers and trade sponsors. To receive Gold and Silver reflects a continuation of our high standards. We are guided by a core principle of quality above all.
“I would like to thank all of my family and everyone at the brewery for all their support and hard work. Our successes are testament to our amazing team’s hard work and effort over the past few years.”
As a Gold winner of the awards, the Blonde ale is automatically entered into the National Independent Beer Awards 2018, which will take place at SIBA Beer X in March 2018.
The overall competition champions were a beer called ‘Afghan Pale Ale’ by Grey Trees Brewery taking an overall Gold in the cask beer competition, and ‘Chocolate Moose’ by Purple Moose took home the overall Gold in the small pack (bottle and can competition).
SIBA currently represents more than 825 independent craft breweries and their vision is ‘to deliver the future of British beer and become the voice of British brewing.’
Gary and his wife Alison Walters launched Ludlow Brewing Company in May 2006, rekindling an industry which had been dormant in Ludlow since the last brewery in town, the Ludlow and Craven Arms Brewery shut up shop in the 1930s. In March 2009 the company had outgrown the old malting building in Corve Street and began the renovation of an abandoned railway shed on the same site, installing a new 20 barrel brewing system.
Stairway to Paradise was first brewed in September 2010 winning silver in the SIBA competition category for strong bitters in 2011. The newest pale ale Blonde was brewed in the new brewery at the end of 2014.