In ANOTHER record year for the Independent Beer Awards White Bay takes the coveted prize
Australia’s best independent beer for 2022 is … wait for it… a lager!
White Bay Lager by White Bay Beer Company has taken out Champion Independent Beer.
The Sydney based brewery’s White Bay Lager stood out of 1,458 beers from 207 breweries to take the top gong in the only Australian Independent Beer Awards (The Indies).
With the help of 49 stewards, 55 of the best and emerging judges from Australia & New Zealand took a leap of faith with our new categories, scoring methodology and IT system.
Once again Queensland shone with 7 out of 22 trophies closely followed by NSW who took out 6 with Moffat Beach, once again, taking home 4 champion trophies.
Pale Ale and Lager were the standout categories with 269 and 201 entries respectively. Unusually so for the Indies Awards, the Lager category also claimed the largest number of golds as well as the overall Champion Aussie Independent Beer.
The introduction of new categories Juicy-Hazy resulted in 162 entries and 16 golds and the ever-increasing popularity of No and Low Alcohol, yielded 125 entries and 14 gold medals.
And it’s not only beer that was celebrated with four industry legends being acknowledged for their contribution via our Peer Nominated Awards.
A big shout out goes to:
Service to the Industry – Presented by the IBA
Jade Flavell, The Wheatsheaf Hotel/Wheaty Brewing Corp in South Australia
Young Gun of the Year – Presented by The Crafty Pint
Emma Locke, Beer Farm in Western Australia
True Indie Supporter – Presented by Thirsty Merchants
Kieran Yewdall & Michael Shaughnessy from the The Catfish Tavern in Victoria
The awards are presented by the Independent Brewers Association (IBA) and Richard Adamson, IBA Chair, said both the number of entries and medals should be celebrated after the challenges that the Indies faced in 2021. It is a testament to the trust and commitment that our community has in us.
“We also know that the industry is still doing it tough, now facing issues greater than the last couple of years, with skills shortages and rising costs making it difficult to do business but to see a record number of entries once again has left us gob smacked.
“Congratulations to all of the champions and entrants, you are all winners in our eyes”. Adamson said.
We hoped that 2022 would have seen us all together again as the Indies Awards usually sits as a partner to BrewCon, our industry conference, but once again we will be live streaming from a professional production studio to 8 official state parties around the nation.
Kylie Lethbridge, IBA Chief Executive Officer, said; with nearly 1,000 brewery representatives and industry supporters getting ready to celebrate the best of the best we are expecting a big night. Even though the IBA team are cheering on remotely we still feel that this night is a very special one and we feel like we are with our indie family in spirit.
Our most sincere thanks goes to all our judges and stewards who volunteer their time away from family and friends to help us ensure the Indies are administered to the highest standards.
We also honour our studio MC’s, state party volunteers, sponsors, industry partners, newly formed Indies Advisory Committee and our Head Judge Tina Panoutsos. These kind and generous humans turn our brilliant but small team in to a large family who throw their everything in to ensuring the Indies are valued and respected on a world scale,” Lethbridge added.