Winning amateur Black IPA will be brewed at the Fork

Winning amateur Black IPA will be brewed at the Fork

NZ Amateur Brewer is a relatively new organisation working hard to promote and improve home brewing around New Zealand. One of their main activities is running large competitions where amateur brewers compete to make the best example of a nominated style. Entries are then judged by a panel of experts and, in recent cases, the winning brew is commercially produced by a professional brewery.

Fork & Brewer was delighted to host both the judging of the NZ Amateur Brewer: Battle Black IPA contest on 4 August and the announcement of the winners the following day (5 August). Thirty entries were judged by a panel of beer aficionados co-led by Fork & Brewer director Dion Page and famous beer writer Geoff Griggs. The judges were impressed at the technical skill evident in the glasses and a top ten was announced at end of the day.

The top three were announced in the bar the next day with Brayden Rawlinson taking out the top award. He had earlier declared himself “stoked” just to get into the top ten. 1,000 litres of his winning beer will be put down shortly once our hard-working brewery has refilled stocks of some of the Fork’s most popular house beers after they were drunk dry during the busy Beervana/Choice Beer Week/Wellington on a Plate season.

Congratulations should also go to Reuben Moore who came second, and to Jason Wareing and Corey Dorset for third place. Fork & Brewer looks forward to hosting another NZ Amateur Brewer competition in the not too distant future. We will be announcing on social media when the winning Black IPA will be brewed and when it will be officially launched. That is likely to be in October but you can never rush great beer.

Ends

© Scoop Media