SIBA announces National Beer Competition 2014 winners

Cotswold Spring Brewery’s OSM (Old Sodbury Mild) won the cask category, Fuller’s London Porter won keg and Independence from Bristol Beer Factory picked up the award for bottled beer. Each was selected from the gold medal winners for their category.

All gold, silver and bronze medal-winning beers were chosen at a judging session at the start of BeerX on Tuesday. A panel of around 100 brewers, industry experts, local licensees and beer enthusiasts assessed the 300 finalist beers, which had all earned their place in Sheffield by winning a medal at one of SIBA’s eight regional beer competitions. 

All the finalist beers are now on sale at the BeerX Festival of Beer, which is anticipating 2,000 visitors before the event’s close on Saturday evening.

Applaud​

SIBA chief executive Julian Grocock said: “With close to 800 brewers now within SIBA’s membership, competition for a medal is intense at both regional heats and the national final. To win a place at the final judging at BeerX is an achievement in itself and we applaud all our finalist brewers as well as the medal and trophy winners. 

“While coming away with an award is of course a tremendous accolade, every brewer here today is a winner. For many of our finalists, the BeerX Festival of Beer is a unique opportunity to put their brews in front of new drinkers outside their heartland. Helping our members to expand distribution of their beers has always been one of SIBA’s key goals and we hope that BeerX results in additional sales for many of them.”

The award winners received their certificates and trophies on stage at BeerX from BBC Radio food and drink broadcaster Nigel Barden and SIBA commercial director Nick Stafford.