Porthmadog’s Purple Moose Brewery has scooped one of its most prestigious awards to date – a ‘Golden Fork’ trophy at this year’s Great Taste Awards in London. The trophy for ‘Best Welsh Speciality’ was presented to brewery founder Lawrence Washington at a ceremony on Monday evening for Purple Moose’s iconic dark beer, Dark Side of the Moose.

The awards, which have been run by The Guild of Fine Food since 1995, recognise the best speciality food and drink from the whole of Great Britain and Ireland. From this year’s 7,482 entries Dark Side of the Moose was one of just 114 products to achieve the highest standard with a 3-Star Gold. From there it became one of a select few to be nominated for one of the twelve Golden Fork trophies.

Lawrence and his staff are immensely proud of this achievement; one which helps to put beer on the map not only for Wales, but for the whole of the UK. “It is fantastic to see that great British beer is gaining such high levels of recognition, alongside the very best of the nation’s food and drink.”

This award comes on the back of several others already this year for the same beer. Dark Side of the Moose achieved a bronze at the Brewing Industry International Awards in February, and gained a third successive award at the International Beer Challenge. Lawrence added, “When Purple Moose Brewery began six years ago I designed Dark Side of the Moose to my own taste, for what would hopefully become my favourite beer. I am extremely pleased with the result, and so flattered that many other people clearly enjoy it as well. This is an unbelievable achievement, and it is so reassuring that we are making fantastic beer which is selling at record levels.”

This year’s Great Taste Awards have also highlighted just how good Welsh beer currently is. Only 35 beers nationally reached the grade this year and six of them are Welsh. Monty’s Brewery from Montgomery achieved a 2-Star Gold while Otley Brewery from Pontypridd picked up one 1-Star Gold, two 2-Star Golds and one 3-Star Gold, the latter being for their O-Garden. This was also nominated for the ‘Best Welsh Speciality’ trophy but was beaten to it by Purple Moose’s Dark Side of the Moose.

www.purplemoose.co.uk

http://www.finefoodworld.co.uk/content/GreatTasteAwards/86.html

Another August Bank Holiday, another successful Charity Beer Festival

Visitors to The Barrels 24th Annual Charity Beer Festival enjoyed 700 gallons of excellent beers from various British brewers, and 125 gallons of local cider and perry.

The beer festival is run by volunteers and benefits local Charities (see below for full list of charities). In total, this year’s festival raised a record £19,500, which was split between 23 charities.

In particular, the festival donated £1,000 to The Mayor of Hereford’s chosen charities, which were Help for Heroes and Macmillan Renton Unit.

The Barrels is a Wye Valley Brewery pub in Hereford. The brewery was based at the pub until it moved brewing out to Stoke Lacy in 2002. Pictured Peter Amor, Landlord of The Barrels handing over a cheque for £1,000 to The Mayor of Hereford Councillor Julie Woodward.

Charities:
Breast Haven
Star Dreams
Hereford Open Door
St Michaels Hospice
Martha Trust
Macmillan Renton Unit
Macmillan Nurses
Taste for Adventure Centre
Mind
10th Hereford Scout Group
Headway
No One Ledbury Road
Mayors Charity
People Advocacy Network
Cruse Bereavement
Rehab & Recovery Football Team
Noah’s Ark
Air Ambulance
Childrens Ward – Hereford Hospital
Friends of the Castle Green
Open Gate Social Club
Hereford Girl Guides
Barton Hill

Val Williams, Quality Assurance Supervisor

Product quality and a dedicated team of people are at the heart of Wye Valley Brewery’s values.

Val Williams, Quality Assurance Supervisor, has recently gained a Distinction grade in the Level 3 Award in HACCP for food manufacturing.

Since Val’s appointment in 2010 she has been responsible for bringing microbiological testing ‘in house’, and has strengthened Wye Valley Brewery’s commitment to maintaining the highest possible standards of product quality, and customer service.

Said Vernon Amor, Managing Director at Wye Valley Brewery, ‘At Wye Valley Brewery we make great beer using top quality raw materials, but our staff are the most important ingredient for success, investing in their training and development is essential.’

In addition to Val’s success, other members of the production team Sean Tobin, Matt Ingram and Jamie Craddock have achieved NVQ qualifications. Sean, Level 3 in Business Management, Matt and Jamie Level 2 in Team Leading.

Monty’s Brewery managed to secure the talents of Miss England finalist Amy Wollerton to promote their Award winning Monty’s Mischief.

Monty’s Mischief is a strong golden bitter with initial punches of hops on the pallet, subtle malt character aftertaste, refreshing and easily quaffable for a 5% ale. It is a SIBA 2011 regional award winner, getting a bronze in the strong bitters category at Ludlow in the Wales and West competition.

Monty’s want to wish Amy every success in the Miss England competition!

“Old Comrade” brewed by Hobsons Brewery to commemorate the 90^th anniversary of the Royal British Legion branch in Cleobury Mortimer has seen fantastic sales in its first month. And not only are people enjoying the crisp pale ale, 5p from each bottle sale is being donated to the Poppy Appeal.

Hobsons are preparing for a busy month ahead, as July marks the actual anniversary of the Royal British Legion branch formation.  Extra brews are planned ensuring shelves are stocked and for a limited time Old Comrade will be available in cask, so you can enjoy a pint of 4.2% abv Old Comrade at your local pub (refer to www.hobsons-brewery.co.uk for a list of stockists).

During the month of July Cleobury will be a hive of activity, as the Cleobury Royal British Legion branch roll out their programme of events to celebrate the anniversary, including an exhibition of militaria, parade, film show, concert and fish and chip supper.  On Wednesday 13^th July Hobsons Brewery will host a special event as part of the celebrations, the evening will include an Engima presentation by Dr Mark Baldwin, followed by a buffet, quiz and prize raffle, and of course Hobsons fine beers will be on tap.

Having delivered over 270 presentations, Dr Mark Baldwin (RBL member) is amongst Britain’s most experienced speakers on WW2 Intelligence, particularly on the Enigma machine and Bletchley Park. His presentations will include a demonstration of a 1944 Enigma machine. The ticket only event starts at 7:30pm, ticket are £10.00 each with money raised from the event going to the Poppy Appeal. For information on tickets please call 01299 270837.

Members of staff at Wye Valley Brewery are enjoying a celebratory drink with brewer Ben Adams, who has been crowned Silver medalist at the International Barrel Rolling Championships.

Ben entered the men’s singles competition and after winning the Silver medal he persuaded his girlfriend to enter the mixed doubles with him, where they did the double, winning Silver here too!

This isn’t the first success Wye Valley Brewery has had at Barrel Rolling, Managing Director Vernon Amor and Head Brewer Jimmy Swan won the Bromyard Barrel Rolling race a few years ago!

Wye Valley Brewery will enter a team in to The Inaugural World Championship Hop Pocket Race at the Bromyard Hop Festival. This takes place on Saturday 3^rd September.

Elderflower harvesting!

Wye Valley Brewery’s monthly beer offering for July comes in the form of Flower Power!

Flower Power is a flavoursome pale ale featuring Herefordshire elderflowers and is the first of its kind for Wye Valley Brewery.  This 4.4% abv beer is described as a pale straw coloured beer, bursting with flavour from Styrian Goldings hops and the addition of fresh elderflowers.

Brewery staff took time out of the office to collect elderflowers for the brew from a local farm, said brewer Ben Adams, ‘We had to be enterprising when picking the elderflowers, a step ladder was an essential item!’

Look out for this floral beer in free houses in the Midlands, Gloucestershire, Bristol and South Wales during July.

Pubs and clubs across 5 counties will be taking part in a Big Orange Quizathon to raise money for local charity Noah’s Ark Trust for one week between 26th June and 3rd July.

Teams of up to 5 people can enter the quiz and there is a suggested donation of £5 per team. Full details are available at www.bigorangequiz.co.uk where you can search for a quiz near you.

The quizathon has been given an orange theme to reflect Noah’s Ark Trust’s distinctive charity colour. It also makes the quiz bright, bold and distinctive plus adds a little fun for our quiz questions – expect to see an orange-themed question round! In addition, all the winning quiz teams will be entered into a free prize draw to win an overall fantastic prize of a team canoe trip down the River Wye plus a case of Wye Valley Brewery’s special Ark Ale for each team member.

This event is being run by Wye Valley Brewery who has chosen to support Noah’s Ark Trust as their designated charity partner for this year. They started the year by producing a special fundraising brew called Ark Ale, which has so far raised over £1000 for the charity.

Vernon Amor, Wye Valley Brewery managing director explains, “We wanted to follow up the success of Ark Ale with an event that we could invite pubs and sports and social clubs across the region to get involved with. Pub quizzes are a great way to get together with some friends and have a fun evening in good company. We’ve added the Big Orange factor to the mix to support this very worth cause and we’re very grateful to the support of all our customers who have enthusiastically got involved.”