No small beer: Blackman’s wins best brewery award

Rick Bennie, Jess Blackman, Renn Blackman and Luke Denham celebrate their title at the international awards ceremony last Thursday.

TORQUAY’S own Blackman’s Brewery was crowned this year’s Champion Small Australian Brewery at the Australian International Beer Awards last Thursday.

Opening its doors in August 2014, the brewhouse has become a destination for beer lovers from around the community as well as Torquay’s recurring summer visitors.

Brewery owner Renn Blackman said he and his team were pleasantly surprised to be honoured with the prestigious recognition.

“Every year we enter and usually we go pretty well, but to win the champion – it’s pretty amazing,” he said.

“We sort of knew we were making good beers, but now we know we are making the best beers in Australia.”

Renn said the beers from Blackman’s Brewery were judged blind against about 2,400 other entries.

Prior to last week’s ceremony, Blackman’s had only received one gold medal from its previous entries to the awards.

In a welcome turn, the brewery scored four gold, four silver and four bronze medals at the awards, with their signature pale ale, Mervyn, taking out the title for best American-style pale ale.

Mr Blackman said the win was as special for Torquay as it is for his team.