Highland Brewing Co of Orkney is celebrating a top UK accolade for its flagship brand Scapa Special.
The golden cask ale scooped the silver medal in the Best Bitters class at the fiercely fought Camra (Campaign for Real Ale) Champion Beer of Britain contest. Held at the Great British Beer Festival – the country’s biggest celebration of cask ales – the contest is judged by British and international beer experts.
An already much acclaimed brew, Scapa Special (4.2%abv) – a pale ale brewed with hops from the UK, Germany and the U.S – came second only to the beer which went on to be voted Champion Beer of Britain at the festival in London’s Olympia. The success for their biggest selling brand is a further boost to Highland’s plans for future growth this year.
Founder and head brewer Rob Hill said: “We are delighted to pick up this award – it is just terrific to see our flagship best bitter included in the top echelon of British beers at this very prestigious contest. It reinforces our confidence that we are brewing some of the best beer in Britain with our approach of taking the greatest care and using only first class ingredients. After our successes earlier this year, this win further underpins our ambitious expansion plans to treble capacity so we can reach a much wider audience.”
The success for Scapa Special follows hard on the heels of Highland’s outstanding triumph of five world class accolades for its brands earlier this year at the International Brewing Awards – a bi-annual beer challenge judged by the world’s toughest taste panel. This included a hat-trick of gold medals.*
A family run 20 barrel-brew-length plant, Highland Brewing Co was founded by Rob Hill at Swannay, Orkney, in 2005. Now new branding is planned to highlight the long list of awards Highland has notched up over 10 years, while new brewing plant will treble production capacity to meet the spiralling home market demand and grow exports.
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Highland Brewing Company supplies directly to some 300 outlets throughout the Orkney Islands, mainland Scotland and the North East of England, while also reaching many outlets across the UK via leading wholesalers.
Ends/ ref: Highland PR 14
Notes to editors:
*Three of Highland’s beers were proclaimed gold winners in their respective classes at the International Brewing Awards in February : Island Hopping; Pale Ale; Sneaky Wee Orkney Stout; Also Highland’s Oat Stout claimed a silver award while Light Munro won bronze in the low strength cask ale section. The gold award for Island Hopping followed its success at the SIBA (Society of Independent Brewers) Scotland Region Beer Competition 2014- voted Overall Champion Beer for the second year.
The GBBF features ten different beer categories Bitters, Best Bitters, Strong Bitters, Golden Ales, and Milds, the Speciality class and also the winter beer styles of Porter, Stouts, Barley Wines and Old Ales, and Strong Old Ales and Strong Milds, including beers from both small microbrewers and large regional brewers. The GBBF is the UK’s biggest beer festival where visitors get the chance to sample more than 900 real ales, ciders, perries and international beers produced by more than 350 breweries.