Renaissance Brewing wins at the 2013 Brewers Guild Awards

Renaissance Brewing wins Champion New Zealand Brewery at the 2013 Brewers Guild Awards

9th August 2013

Marlborough based craft brewers, Renaissance Brewing, are celebrating a huge win at the 2013 New Zealand Brewers Guild Awards after they won two trophies and picked up the supreme award for Champion New Zealand Brewery. The two trophies were for Enlightenment Black the RIPA in the Wheat and Other Grain Styles category and for Tribute Barley Wine in the British Style Ales category.

This success follows similar achievement at the Australian International Beer Awards earlier this year when Renaissance won two trophies, including Champion International Small Brewery.

Renaissance was founded in 2006 by Brian Thiel and Andy Deuchars in the old Grove Mill building, which is the oldest commercial premise in Blenheim. Using his previous brewing and winemaking experience, Andy’s goal was to pioneer a range of beers that delivered flavour and balance to a fledgling group of drinkers who were starting to demand more from the beers they drank.

Andy Deuchars was in Wellington to accept the awards last night, of the win he said:

“It’s a great achievement and I couldn’t be more pleased for the guys who put their heart and souls into making these beers. It is also great to see how far craft beers in New Zealand have evolved in the past decade, from a personal perspective I am very proud that we are still at the forefront of this continuing revolution.”

“Tribute is my baby and the fact it has now picked up two trophies when it is over 18 months old is testament that beers can improve with age. Black the RIPA was released under the Enlightenment range, which is our brand for experimental and collaboration beers. It also allows the brewers that work under me the opportunity to flex their creativity. Considerable credit for the success of Black the RIPA has to be given to assistant brewer Matt Dainty, whose vision it was to use rye in a black, hoppy IPA.”

As well as a strong domestic presence, Renaissance also exports to Australia, the United States and Canada. The success over the last year will hopefully enable it to find more export partners in Europe and Asia as it becomes another overseas success story for the province of Marlborough.

ENDS

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