Bentspoke Brewing Co has helped to keep Australia’s craft beer industry on the global map, after winning two gold medals at the International Brewing Awards (IBA) as well as a Championship Trophy, with Barley Griffin winning the Smallpack Ale class for the second time.
Dubbed by many as the ‘Oscars of the brewing industry’ the IBAs held its awards ceremony at the Guildhall in London last week and Co-Founder and Head Brewer, Rich Watkins, was there to collect the trophy and medals for the brewery.
As well as the Gold medal and Trophy for Barley Griffin, Bentspoke’s no-alcohol IPA, FreeWheeler collected a Gold medal in the Ultra Low Alcohol category.
Watkins said: “Winning gold medals is a great accolade but to win the championship trophy for the second time amongst such an esteemed number of breweries world wide is amazing result for our brewery.
“The likes of Sierra Nevada, Firestone Walker, Deschutes and Round Corner Brewing etc are all world class breweries and now BentSpoke has its name on the trophy for the second time (winning in 2019 and now 2024).
“This incredible result is justification for dedication of our team to make world class beers on a consistent level. A really awesome result.”
This year’s IBAs saw participation from 47 brewers from 19 countries with judging taking place over three days in March. The panel of 30 judges led by Chair of Beer Judging, Rob McCaig and Chair of Cider Judging, Gabe Cook, awarded 115 Gold, Silver and Bronze medals.
Ruth Evans MBE, Director of the International Brewing & Cider Awards, said: “It’s been such an honour to continue to recognise the extraordinary beers and ciders across the world and celebrate all their achievements as they collected their awards at our ceremony this week.
“This year we received an unprecedented level of high-quality beers and ciders, making it one of the toughest competitions to judge to date – and resulted in two brewers receiving the highest recognition in our Smallpack Ale competition.
“We’re thrilled to be able to continue to provide a platform to reward the best beers and ciders with the credit they so truly deserve. Awards like these are so important in raising a company’s profile and help their beers and ciders stand out from the crowd.
“This year we’ve crowned winners from all over the world including Australia, China, Japan, Spain, Ireland, USA and the UK and we’d like to congratulate each brewer and cidermaker who received recognition at this year’s International Brewing & Cider Awards for their continued efforts pushing the boundaries within the brewing and cidermaking industry.”