The team behind Isle of Arran Brewery have returned home from the Scottish Indie Beer Awards with a big haul of honours.
Brewery boss Gerald Michaluk (pictured left) was there to help with the event, but ended up accepting several awards for the brewery.
The star this year was old classic Arran Dark, a Scottish heavy that’s remained essentially unchanged for 26 years. It earned golds in the classes for bottled and canned session dark beers and cask session dark beers, going on to pick up bronze overall in bottled and canned beers.
According to brewer Yorick Hinchliffe, Id — soon to be renamed as Bjorn to Brew — is “the best beer ever brewed on Arran”. It was a gold winner in the class for bottled and canned speciality IPAs. “This is our first real attempt at brewing an IPA with modern methods (modern by our standards anyway), and to see it flourish on this first attempt is a really good sign for the future,” said the brewer.
There were bronzes for Sunset, in the bottled and canned British bitters, and Fireside in bottled and canned speciality and flavoured beers.
“What a haul! Now we just need to figure out how we are going to deflate Yorick’s massive ego,” said Gerald, who is in the process of handing over the reins of the brewery to a new generation, ahead of retirement.
