Triple bronze for city brews
The Invercargill Brewery scored a hat-trick with three of its four labels bringing home medals at the prestigious BrewNZ Awards in Wellington last week.
Stanley Green and B.man were both awarded Bronze medals in the pale ale category, while Wasp gained a bronze medal in the non-barley beer section.
Owner-brewer Steve Nally said he was delighted with the medals, particularly for first-time medal holders Stanley Green and B.man.
“To take four beers to the table and come home with three medals is fantastic. The standard is incredibly high so bronze really is a great result,” he said.
The Stanley Green Medal was particularly poignant, as the brew was named after Mr Nally’s maternal grandfather – Stanley Green of course.
The Invercargill Brewery, co-owned by Steve Nally and his father Gerry Nally, moved from the blue shed on Oteramika Road to down-town Invercargill in June. Its four traditionally brewed labels Pitch Black, Stanley Green, Wasp and B.man each had only four ingredients – one of which was water.
The micro-brews were available on tap at the brewery bottlestore where plastic was fast becoming the new chic.
“The fill-your-own option has really proven a hit – for most people it’s the sustainability they like,” Mr Nally said.
He is currently in the process of organising guest beers that will be available on tap on a rotational basis and the hopes one of the first will be from the Emerson’s label.
Dunedin based Emerson’s Brewery provided more winning Southern flavours. They took out best in class for Stouts and porters with a silver medal for Oatmeal Stout, best in class for non-barley beer with silver medal winning Dunkelweiss and best in flavoured beer class with gold medal winning Taieri George.
If the standard of the beers was high in Wellington, so too was the standard of the judges with just six of the 170 brews entered achieving gold medals. Beers were judged blind and to qualify beers in all 14 classes had to be accessible in New Zealand.
For full results www.brewnz.co.nz