Celebrating success from the left are Wood's staff Andrew Pinnock, Jo Varcoe, Chris Underwood, Edward Wood, Paul Benson, Andrew Willer, Nick Phillips

Staff at south Shropshire’s Wood Brewery are celebrating achieving a hat-trick of major competition successes.

The Wistanstow village brewery was one of two winners in the ‘best sponsorship’ category of the SIBA (Society for Independent Brewers) national awards for the brewing industry in London.

Wood’s took the highly commended award for creating ‘Triple A – Air Ambulance Ale’ to raise money through donating a percentage of the sales price of every pint to the Midlands Air Ambulance, which is celebrating 18 years of operations.

Wood’s Managing Director Edward Wood received the award from Oliver Hartley of Award sponsor Croxsons.

Edward said: “We’re delighted for ourselves, for the Air Ambulance, and for all the people who are showing their support for the charity by buying Triple A. Sales are going very well indeed and if the trend continues, we should be handing over a four-figure sum when the sponsorship ends after the end of the year.”

The Wood family have special cause to support the Air Ambulance charity. In August, three months after the brewery sponsorship began, Edward’s 15-year-old son Jonathan had to be air-lifted to Stoke for emergency brain surgery after sustaining a serious head injury while playing cricket in Shrewsbury. He has made a full recovery as a result.

The SIBA sponsorship award came hard on the heels of Wood’s being chosen as one of just 15 finalists from a starting selection of 100 in one of the most fiercely contested brewing contests in Britain, the Sainsbury’s Beer Competition. Wood’s shipped more than 30,000 bottles of their blonde Shropshire Lass beer to Sainsbury as a result of reaching the final.

“Sainsbury’s was an excellent boost for business in the very difficult recessionary conditions that the country is going through, and it’s got the name of Shropshire Lass very widely known,” he said.

In early summer, Wood’s took one of the top awards at the Heart of England Fine Foods Diamond Awards which celebrated the best of regional produce across the West Midlands. The brewery took home the Special Diamond Award for Excel which was sponsored by Advantage West Midlands. Judges commented that the brewery “regularly develops special products linked to the local community” and was “totally committed to reducing waste and energy”. The panel unanimously felt that this company was outstanding on corporate social responsibility and the way in which it used this to successfully market the company.

Said Edward: “The SIBA award is the icing on the cake of a very special summer for us. It’s a reward for the hard work of all the brewery’s staff and we’re looking forward to more success next year too, because we’ll be celebrating 30 years of brewing then.”