Utopian Brewing scoops World Best Style award and 3 Country Golds at the 2023 World Beer Awards
Devon based Utopian Brewing has today won a highly prestigious, World’s Best Style title in the ‘Seasonal Maibock’ category of the 2023 World Beer Awards with its Rainbock – Maibock Lager. Utopian were one of only 4 English breweries to pick up a ‘World Best’ award with other winners coming from as far afield as Brazil, South Korea and Japan as well as Europe and the USA. A genuinely global competition.
This ‘Worlds Best’ award comes on the back of another fabulous haul for Utopian in the earlier Country Awards round where they picked up three Country Golds for their Frankishes Rotbier, Bohemian British Lager and the Rainbock with a Silver for their Premium Lager and Bronze for the Harlequin Pils.
This international competition recognises and celebrates the finest beers from around the globe, with an esteemed panel of judges meticulously evaluating each style winner to determine the ultimate World's Best.
In the opening round, each beer underwent rigorous tasting in its relevant style, leading to the selection of medal and style winners in each country. Judges then converged in London for the international judging, where the world champions emerged. Round two saw the panel pitting country style winners against each other to determine the best in each style worldwide with Utopian picking up the “Seasonal Maibock” award.
Judge Adrian-Tierney Jones commented: “Once again the winners in the World Beer Awards demonstrate a pulsating and exciting snapshot of some of the most exciting beers being brewed across the globe.”
Commenting on the awards founder and MD Richard Archer said “We were absolutely delighted to pick up the 5 medals in Round 1 as there is very strong competition from both big and small breweries across the country. But to win a World Best Style award is off the scale good and thoroughly deserved recognition of the outstanding talent of our head brewer Jeremy Swainson and his amazing team of James Foster, Ben Bourn, Simon Shakespeare, Colin Blick and Graham Reynolds. It takes a full team effort to produce a world beating beer and we are blessed that we have such an amazing one”.
Head Brewer Jeremy Swainson added “The Maibock is quite a challenging beer style to brew and as it only gets brewed once a year you don’t get any practice. It needs a lot of patience and attention to look after it through those long winter months so it is truly a team effort. I’m super pleased for the team to get this recognition for all the hard work they put in and their total dedication to making great beer.”
In only its fifth year of Brewing, Utopian have very quickly established themselves as a brand that’s driving real innovation into its brewing processes and in particular to creating great International style lagers with only 100% British grown ingredients. Their 5 medal winning brews showcase a huge array of different, classical lager styles and prove now, without question, that great lager can be made with only home grown malt and hops.
Archer went on to say “The Rainbock holds a special place for us as we first brewed it in our start up year, January 2020. By the time it was ready to pack, after 100 days in tank, we were in lockdown and the world had become a very different place. Rainbock was a really important beacon for us though that time, helping us spread the world about our lagers and broaden awareness. It played a big part in helping us get through those early months of the pandemic and so to now have it recognised on the World stage is a lovely reminder of its importance to us as a business and also, of course, of what an amazing beer it is”.
About Utopian Brewing
Utopian Brewing is a premium drinks brand, dedicated to brewing high-quality, environmentally sustainable lagers. The brand established itself 5 years ago in 10,000 square feet of former farm buildings in picturesque mid Devon and interprets classic styles of brewing using only 100% British grown ingredients. All Utopian’s lagers are naturally brewed using only the highest quality, ingredients, no additives and no compromise. All their lagers are cold conditioned for a minimum of 28 days and many for much longer.
With strong sustainability credentials and a long term ambition to become carbon neutral, The brewhouse itself is lit by movement-sensing LED lighting, a large heat exchanger recovers 80% of the heat from the previous brew for the next. Utopian have also recently commissioned their Dalum CO2 capture unit which harvests the CO2 produced in brewery fermentation, then dries and cleans it for use in packaging. This has made the brewery completely self sufficient in production CO2.
The brewery uses only FSC cardboard in its packaging and does not use any single-use plastic.
Lager fans can find Utopian lagers across the UK in selected pubs, restaurants, bottle shops, food halls, independent retailers and via Utopian’s online store.
More information and images
Richard Archer MD : richard@utopianbrewing.com 01392 796765
About the World Beer Awards
The World Beer Awards are part of The World Drinks Awards. The World Drinks Awards are the global awards selecting the very best in all internationally recognised styles of drinks. Presented by TheDrinksReport.com, the world’s no.1 online resource for drinks professionals, the World Drinks Awards select, reward and promote the world’s best drinks to consumers and trade across the globe. The World Beer Awards are the global awards selecting the very best in all the international recognised styles. Link to their press release can be found here