It was Stay Gold that started this … the Brave Brewing XPA that won a trophy in the International Pale Ale class at this year’s New Zealand Beer Awards.

I was looking back through the records and realised it was the fifth gold medal that beer had won, and I started to think “how many other beers have snuck under the radar as much as this?”.

And once you start looking at these things it just builds and builds. Oh, look Mac’s Gold has a very impressive record at awards. And Lakeman’s Hairy Hop … that does very well. And so on.

So, I decided I would try to list the most-awarded New Zealand beers dating back to the start of the NZ Beer Awards in 2007.

And then when you talk about beers like Chance Luck & Magic from Garage Project, you have to take into account that the 2020 vintage has won silver and bronze medals at the World Beer Cup — the hardest event anywhere to win a medal because they give out only three (gold, silver, bronze) in any category.

So, before I knew it, I had a spreadsheet that took in the NZ Beer Awards, Australian International Beer Awards, New World Beer & Cider Awards, World Beer Cup and World Beer Awards.

To make it manageable I looked at only gold medal winners but the next question became: do trophy winners get more kudos? And what about champion beers?

And then there’s the question of longevity, with beers like Three Boys Oyster Stout picking up gold medals at the various extremes of the competition windows — from 2007 right up to 2025. Surely that’s worth something?

I came up with an efficient but arguable system that awarded points for gold medals, bonus points for winning trophies, more bonus points for winning champion trophies and then upticked some beers for longevity.

There were four clearly dominant beers over the past two decades: Three Boys Oyster Stout, Chance Luck & Magic 2020, Epic Armageddon, and Tuatara Hefe (no longer in production).

There were bunched together at the top of the table and separated from the rest by a margin.

Oyster Stout comes out on top by virtue of four trophies and five other gold medals as well as its longevity. It won a trophy as far back as the records show — in 2007 — and had a golden run from 2010-2014 when it won three trophies and two gold medals for an unbroken streak of success.

Back-to-back gold medals in 2024 and 2025 show that the beer has lost nothing over the course of its two decades as one of New Zealand’s most unique, and most decorated, drops.

most awarded beers

Chance Luck & Magic noses Armageddon for second based on the two World Cup Beer medals. That kind of international success in a cut-throat competition makes CL&M New Zealand’s most successful beer on the international stage in the 21st century.

most awarded beers

Epic’s flagship IPA, Armageddon, is one of the country’s most imitated beers, and little wonder given its dominance in competitions from 2009, the year after its inception, until 2015 when it won four trophies and three other gold medals in a run of success matched only by Oyster Stout.

most awarded beers

Here’s my list of the Top-25 beers most awarded beers of the century:

1. Three Boys Oyster Stout
2. Garage Project Chance Luck & Magic 2020
3. Epic Armageddon
4. Tuatara Hefe
5. Renaissance Tribute*
6. Panhead Port Road Pils
7. Garage Project Chance Luck & Magic 2021
8. Cassels Milk Stout
9. McLeod’s Paradise Pale Ale
10. Burke’s Unforgiven Porter
11. Steinlager Pure
12. 8 Wired Wild Feijoa
13. McLeod’s Longboarder Lager
14. Mac’s Gold
15. 8 Wired Big Smoke
16. Kereru Feijoa Weisse
17. Emerson’s Bookbinder
18. Lakeman Hairy Craic
19. Brave Brewing Stay Gold
20. Emerson’s Old 95
21. Sprig + Fern The G.O.A.T
22. Liberty Citra
23. Garage Project White Mischief
24. Liberty Prohibition Porter
25. McLeod’s Traders Scotch Ale

*In the case of Renaissance Tribute there are two vintages of this featured in awards and often they are not specified as to whether it’s the 2011 or 2013. So, I left it in there because it was a legend in its time.

Emerson’s JP (call it No 26 on our list) is another vintage beer, which is different each time, including in style, and while it’s won three trophies over the years, it had be excluded because it varied so much.

There are a bunch of beers (some no longer made) that have proved remarkably consistent over time, including: Townshend Oldham’s Tap Pilsner, Lakeman Hairy Hop, Garage Project Pickle Beer, Moa Southern Alps White IPA, Bach Billfish, Liberty Knife Party, Shining Peak Octopus Clamp, Shining Peak Vintage Stout 2021, Three Boys Prunus Stave, Sprig + Fern Harvest Pilsner, Speight’s Old Dark, 8 Wired iStout, Garage Project Pernicious Weed, Parrotdog Bitterbitch, Altitude Powder Day Pilsner Wigram The Czar, and Behemoth Half Way Down Lager (they would be Nos 27-43 in a Top-50).

Waiting in the wings are beers which with another gold medal or two plus a trophy to their name would come up the list quickly but they basically round out a Top-50: Garage Project Engeltjes Pis, Garage Project Spicy Pickle Beer, Isthmus 3D IPA, Sawmill Baltic Porter, Behemoth Triple Chocolate Stout, McLeod’s Blue Sky APA, Good George Haze of Glory, Croucher Lowrider, Hawke’s Bay Bluck Duck Porter.

And there are some good beers we don’t see any more but which did well in the early days of the awards — Tuatara Ardennes, Harrington’s Pig & Whistle, Moa St Joseph.