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Awarding winning brewers from around the country at Warkworth’s 8 Wired brewery, from left, Alan Spinks from Forbidden Brewing, Udo Van Deventer from Lion Breweries, Leon Dawson from DB Breweries, Soren Eriksen from 8 Wired, Mark White and Mason Harrington from Harrington’s Breweries and David Cryer from Cryer Malt.
Eight of the country’s top beer brewers gathered at 8 Wired brewery in Warkworth last month to create a collaborative ale for this year’s Brewers Guild awards.
The beer brew-off was organised by Brewers Guild executive committee member Alan Spinx, owner of Warkworth-based Forbidden Brewing. The guild’s annual awards are in their 10th year and Alan wanted to celebrate the milestone by producing a commemorative beer.
“As a cider-maker, I bring fresh eyes to the beer brewing world because I’m not engrossed in it. I just happen to like it,” Alan says.
The brew has been made by the eight past winners of the Champion Brewer award, including 8 Wired owner Soren Eriksen.
“We entered 10 or 12 beers in 2011 and got the most medals overall,” Soren says.
“It was a very close competition and we just beat Emerson’s Brewery.”
Soren moved the brewery from Blenheim to Warkworth two years ago and produces 100,000 litres of beer annually.
Lion won the champion award last year and their brewer Udo Van Deventer says he thought getting the winning brewers together would be impossible.
“I thought, ‘how are eight brewers going to agree on a recipe?’” Udo says.
“It actually went really smoothly and I think we will end up with a good result.”
Soren says the brewers settled on an English-style pale ale because it’s a beer they enjoy as much today as they did 10 years ago.
The ‘Champions Brew’ will be unveiled for tasting at the Brewers Guild awards on October 8. Local breweries entering this year’s awards include The Sawmill, 8 Wired and Forbidden Cider.
Alan says in the unlikely event there is any of the 2500 litres of Champions Brew left over, it will be available to selected retail outlets.
