Cloudwater named Best Brewery in England at international RateBeer awards

The Manchester brewery, which has released a string of massively popular double IPAs and experimental beers since its inception two years ago, was awarded the accolades at the RateBeer Best festival in Santa Rosa, California, last week.

‘Deeply humbled’​

The brewery’s managing director Paul Jones told The Morning Advertiser​ (MA​): “We are deeply humbled that in the weeks before our second birthday, we walked away from RateBeer’s award ceremony with 11 medals.

“The good folk at RateBeer tell me that we’re the first UK brewery to make it into their top 10 breweries in the world, and the only brewery – apart from Hill Farmstead (in North Greensboro, Vermont, which won the top prize at this year's event) – to go from a Best New Brewery to a top 10 place in consecutive years.”

Best new beers​

Versions 10, 3, 6 and 8 of its double IPA were also named Best New Beers.

Jones added: “We always work with continuous improvement in mind, but after the shock and buzz of receiving these awards settles, we’ll redouble our efforts and will do everything we can do to take the UK beer scene forward.”

Cask controversy​

Cloudwater recently stirred controversy in the beer world when it announced it was ditching cask ale to focus on craft keg and canned production going forward.

Speaking to MA ​at the time​, Jones said cask was an “absolutely wonderful” way to produce beer but that it was too challenging for many modern breweries to achieve a good price on.

He said: “The drinker that’s used to cask being a particular price is invariably referring at least in part to beers with a very different cost in production to the beers we make. We certainly couldn’t see how to overcome that.”