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Make mine a double! York Brewery beers win two medals in nine days

by | Food & drink

This is what we call hand-to-mouth living… Photograph: Pawel Kadysz

They’re seeing double at York Brewery.

No, they haven’t been imbibing too much of their own ale. But after winning two medals in just over a week, you couldn’t blame the team for celebrating.

On March 10 one of the Toft Green brewery’s beers, Otherside, scooped a silver medal at the International Brewing Awards.

Nine days later another, York Blonde, took silver at the SIBA National Beer Competition in Sheffield.

Introduced in 2015, Otherside is fast becoming a firm favourite in the core range at the brewery. The Antipodean IPA (4.5% ABV) is made with New Zealand hops.

Hand crafted

Winning ways: York Brewery. Photograph © calflier001 on Wikipedia
Described as fruity, creamy and refreshing, Blonde (3.9% ABV) already boasts a gold and bronze awarded at a regional level.

As with all York Brewery beers, they are hand crafted and made using traditional methods.

Head brewer Nick Webster said: “I love seeing people enjoy drinking our beer, and that’s our prime focus when dreaming up new recipes.

“With Blonde, we tried to focus on bringing through the subtler fruit aspects of the Citra hop which are often lost in a massive citrus punch.

“Otherside was a bit more of a gamble, we’d been working with New Zealand grown hops for a while and wanted to see how they fared in an IPA style beer. To be awarded such high-level praise for both these beers feels great and the team are bouncing.”

The brewery’s brand manager Neil Arden said:

The International Brewing Awards are informally referred to within the industry, as ‘the Oscars of the brewing world’, and with just shy of 1,000 beers, representing 187 breweries and around 50 countries, entered forjudging by an expert panel you can easily see why.

Free rein

A few years ago, the board of directors recognised the skills and passion among the team at York Brewery and the brewers were given free rein to trial new concepts as they wished.

“The decision was the right one. Why strangle creativity with red tape and bureaucracy?” said MD Jonathan Barker.

“It’s wonderful and I’m very proud that our beers win so many awards and medals. Blonde is a personal favourite of mine and as far as Otherside goes, for now at least, it’s mission accomplished!”

The team will collect their International Brewing Award at a dinner at London’s Guildhall on Wednesday, April 26.