Thirteen New Zealand breweries picked up gold medals at the recent 2016 Australian International Beer Awards (AIBA) in Melbourne. Conducted by the Royal Agricultural Society of Victoria (RASV), AIBA is the world’s largest annual beer competition for packaged and draft beer, with a record 1793 beers from 326 breweries across 36 countries entered.
The full list of winners from the 2016 AIBA can be found at www.rasv.com.au/beer
Moa scored medals for 14 of its 16 entrants into the Melbourne-based prestigious awards ceremony, including a gold medal for its specialty malt driven Moa Smoked Helles.
The medal haul for Moa Brewing Co. included one gold, four silvers and nine bronze medals spread across a range of categories. Within this medal count was the Moa Original Lager (Silver) and Session Pale Ale (Bronze), both recently recognised as the two largest selling craft beers in New Zealand by value according to Nielsen supermarket data for 2016*.
Moa Brewing Co. CEO Geoff Ross said it was pleasing to see the two ‘NZ-popular’ beers recognised internationally as well as a number of other Moa beers including the Saint Josephs continue to win further awards on a global stage.
“While we narrowly came in at second place in the Champion International Brewery category (for mid-sized breweries) against Pelican Brewing Company (of Oregon, USA), we’re thrilled with the results and those of our fellow New Zealand brewers. It just continues to demonstrate the quality of brews us Kiwis can produce,” says Geoff.
New Zealand, as a country, proved its weight in gold (medals) – well represented both in medal count and on a geographical scale with Bach Brewing (Auckland), Hot Water Brewing (Waikato), Sunshine Brewery (Gisborne), ParrotDog (Wellington), Harrington’s Brewing (Christchurch), Emerson Brewing Co. (Dunedin), and Craftwork Brewery (Oamaru) also picking up gold medals for their brews.
*MOA calculation based in part on data reported by Nielsen through its Scantrack Service for the beer category, Craft Segment for the 52-week period ending March 27, 2016, for the New Zealand total grocery market. (Copyright © 2015, The Nielsen Company.)
