It’s been a night of Kiwi success at the Australian International Beer Awards … and a heads-up, this is not a cut-and-paste of last year’s results despite 2024 being almost a mirror-image of 2023!
That’s because, for the second year in a row the champion large, medium and small international breweries, respectively, are exactly the same:
Garage Project.
Behemoth.
Three Sisters.
The AIBAs, organised by Melbourne Royal, featured nearly 3,000 entries from 400 exhibitors across 21 countries. The competition was judged by a panel of 75 experts from Australia and overseas, making it one of the most-respected and competitive events in the industry.
It was a huge night for Garage Project (as it so often is when it comes to competitions these days).In winning the champion large international brewery they didn’t just see off any old craft brewery but left in their wake some of the biggest names in the world: Pilsner Urquell, S.A. Damm and Kirin.
They took out the Champion International Beer with Chance, Luck & Magic 2021, which also won a trophy in the Belgian & French Ale category. And they won the trophy in the British and European Ale class with Pickle Beer.
It’s a curious thing, that while Chance, Luck & Magic 2020 has twice won silver medals at the World Beer Cup (2023 and 2024), it’s the younger version that has triumphed here, although the 2020 version still got a gold while the baby of the family, CL&M 2022 picked up bronze.
The night was also a vindication of the Taranaki hop growing programme, previously featured here, with Three Sisters winning two golds with fresh hop beers representing the two local hop farms, Wayward Hops and Quarter Acre Hops.
Outside the three champion brewery titles, it was a great competition for Queenstown’s Altitude Brewing, who won three gold medals.
On a self-interest note, I take great pleasure when personal favourites of mine pop up in these awards, and in this case, hurray for Duncan’s for getting a gold with Raspberry Ripple Ice Cream Sour! And also, hat-tip to what I think is an unsung class act, Urbanaut’s Brixton Pale Ale, which won gold in the British Pale Ale class.
And it’s quite cool to see first-year brewery Thief, whom we profiled recently, getting a gold medal for their Nectaronicon IPA. (For some reason in the catalogue the beer was credited to another brewery… but I checked with Thief and it’s definitely their gold medal!)
Here’s a list of gold medals for NZ breweries:
Garage Project
Chance, Luck & Magic 2021
Chance, Luck & Magic 2020
Pickle Beer (can)
Pickle Beer (keg)
White Mischief Peach Gose
Pernicious Weed IPA
Three Sisters
Wayward Son Fresh Hop Pale Ale
Quarter Acre Hazy IPA
Soggy Biscuit Dessert Stout
Liquid Cake #3 Dessert Stout
Behemoth
Cheech & Chong Fresh Hop Hazy IPA
Raging Raisin Quadruple
Saturation of Citra IPA
Altitude
Powder Day Lager
Blood Moon Schwarzbier
Symbiosis Hybrid Saison
Liberty
Juice Bro Hazy Pale Ale
Prohibition Porter
Urbanaut
Detroit IPA
Brixton Pale Ale
Thief Brewing Nectaronicon IPA
Duncan’s Raspberry Ripple Ice Cream Sour
Eddyline Eddylite Low Carb Pale Ale
Fortune Favours The Mystic Hazy IPA
Mount Brewing Flora Incognita
Sawmill Baltic Porter