BRING out your beers! Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA) beloved beer festival came back with a bang following a two year absence.
MaltingsFest finally returned on Thursday April 21 following previous years cancellations and this year it was more than just ale on the menu.
Guy Sheppard, Committee member for SIBA, said: ‘The festival was always just ales, but this year we have keg beers, lagers, craft beers, local gins, a rum, a whiskey and ciders.
‘It is still very much majoring on the beers, as brewers that’s what we want to sell.’
300 beers were put before the judges: brewers from across the country and trained beer judges assessed each sample of liquid gold.
Buster Grant, Chairman of Competitions for SIBA, said: ‘The judging is done blind, the judges don’t know what the beers are that they’re judging, they’re told roughly what style.
‘They’re looking at all aspects of the beer, the aroma, the flavour, the saleability, and they will then score accordingly.
‘The high scoring beer for me is always going to be the one that I am going to the bar to buy a pint of.
‘I’m looking forward to seeing what the South West produces this time round - I know there will be some cracking beers.’
This year’s festival was a first in another way – a new scoring system made its debut.
Buster said: ‘This is the first of this year’s competitions, so we hold eight competitions each year around the regions of the UK.
‘The South West is the first of a new season and a new set of categories and a new scoring system, it’s very much a new run.
‘In previous years we’ve chosen the best in each category and that’s been a gold medal winner, the way we’re doing it now is each beer is judged on its own merits, so there is potential for more beers to win medals so in theory we could have two or three gold medals in each class but we will also choose the best in each class as well.
‘The best of each class then goes forward to a national competition which is held at BeerX in Liverpool in March of next year.’