Big Drop comes of age at World Beer Awards
Big Drop’s Pine Trail Pale Ale scored a first for an alcohol-free beer yesterday (10.9.20) by winning ‘World’s Best’ at the World Beer Awards for a second time. The 0.5% abv beer came top in the category for Pale beers below 2.5% abv – just as it did in 2017.
And it wasn’t the only one of Big Drop’s beers to win a coveted World’s Best – as its popular ‘Galactic’ Milk Stout was judged favourite in the Flavoured Low Alcohol category as well. That brings a total of four World’s Best titles in the competition so far for a brewer that only came into existence four years ago. Big Drop’s World’s Bests:
- Pine Trail Pale Ale: 2020 & 2017 World’s Best Pale Beer (Low Strength)
- Galactic Milk Stout: 2020 World’s Best Flavoured Beer (Low Strength)
- WoodCutter Brown Ale: 2019 World’s Best Dark Beer (Low Strength)
What is arguably more impressive, however, is that another beer from its 0.5% abv core range was declared best in the UK in a full-strength style category where the runners-up were 6% abv beers. Big Drop’s Paradiso Citra IPA, which picked-up a Bronze medal in last year’s Session IPA category, was this year’s country winner in the Specialty IPA category. In total, there were 2,200 beers entered from over 50 countries across all categories.
Rob Fink, founder and CEO of Big Drop, commented: “It really feels as if alcohol-free beer has finally reached maturity when the world’s top judges give it higher marks than it’s full-strength cousins in blind-tastings. No wonder it’s flying off the shelves! We’re very honoured to be the vanguard of the category and will continue to push the boundaries, both technically and geographically.”
Anita Ujszaszi, Awards Director at the World Beer Awards, added: “With the ever-increasing demand for low alcohol products, especially in younger consumers, it’s great to see that the quality now on offer is outstanding. Over the past years, Big Drop has shown that low alcohol doesn’t mean less flavour and is as good (if not better) than the standard alcohol beers.”
To put Big Drop’s achievement into perspective, it was among just four UK brewers to satisfy the judges and make it on to the World’s Best list of 88 beers last year and, this year, it was among only eight UK brewers on the list.
2020 World Beer Awards: http://www.worldbeerawards.com/winner/beer/2020/taste
Photo by Erwan Hesry on Unsplash
