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Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Barons Best Beer In Battle of Britain


It really did happen, but it was also a great excuse to use all those ‘B’ words in a title!

Barons Brewing Company, who were featured and promoted late in November, have taken out the top gong in the JD Wetherspoon International beer festival last week.

Barons was invited to enter and represent Australia in the international category and offered the Barons Black Wattle Original Ale as their signature brew. A very nice amber ale flavoured with native spices, the beer was selected ahead of three other overseas contenders from California, Denmark and Tokyo, and a total of 50 nominations for best beer.

The competition was run in 717 Wetherspoon pubs across the country and attracted votes from some 8500 punters so this was no mean feat, despite what some locals think of the ‘chain’ pubs and the anti-sentiment of some CAMRA factions. I would be interested to hear fro my blog mates in Old Blighty as to their thoughts on the ‘validity’ of the Wetherspoon festival. Either way, I am backing Barons as a legitimate winner, so there. And here’s why ...

Black Wattle Original Ale has been floating around as a bottled brew for about three years and when head brewer Richard Adamson was invited to brew a batch at the prestigious Marston’s Brewery at Burton-On-Trent he specifically designed a version of the Black Wattle that would savour the ‘real ale’ experience – open fermentation, bright filtering, cask conditioning and hand pumping – to ensure a genuine ale rather than a sort of native favoured Aussie standard beer. The local brew went through six different versions and some serious tweaking before being unleashed on the public. That’s brewing dedication, isn’t it?

In addition, the win has attracted some interest from local importers who are looking at getting on board the Barons Squadron and letting our mother country’s beer lovers experience these innovative beers.

Cheers,
Prof. Pilsner