With highly established craft beer competitors, a micro brewery with humble beginnings and a head brewer who began experimenting in his parents' laundry as a teenager has shone during the recent Royal Adelaide Beer and Cider Awards.
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Longstocking Brewery's Matt Burnett, 32, is thrilled at how much the brewery has been achieving, after winning two silver medals and a bronze medal with their pale ale, IPA (India pale ale), and a mid strength ale.
"That's the first time we've entered a competition. It was really good to get some feedback and some recognition too," Mr Burnett said.
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The feedback allows the team to visualise where they sit within the industry compared to leaders like Coopers Brewery - the largest Australian-owned brewery.
"If there are consistent things through all the feedback, that's definitely an area we can look at to improve," Mr Burnett said.
"If there's two or three things in there potentially where the scores could be higher, I won't change all of them at once because then there's so many variables that could change a lot. So you could focus on one little thing and maybe increase the amount of dry hops you put into a certain beer, and see."
Exhibits are judged in a blind tasting from both a technical and a consumer perspective, which takes into consideration the beer's appearance, aroma, flavour and body, technical excellence, and overall impression.
Using a point system, gold medals are awarded for scores of 17 points and over, silver medals to exhibits between 15.5 and 16.9 points, and bronze between 14 and 15.4 points.
The Longstocking IPA that received a Silver was described by the judges as "a very expressive hop presentation, resinous and full, orange marmalade with excellent balance and very pleasant bitterness. Also a somewhat unique and original example."
Mr Burnett, who comes up with the recipes, said he usually piloted the beer using a 20-litre system, noting down the exact temperatures and technical care required during specific processes.
Sitting on the floor of the brewery, Mr Burnett's latest test, a Red IPA, is "wrapped up like a baby" by a towel, allowing for temperature control while it ferments for the next fortnight, before possibly being scaled up into a 1000-litre batch.
"I've definitely got mates and people who I know that are really into their craft beer and they can give me some pretty good feedback, and us that work here, you can test it on a reasonable scale," he said with a laugh.
"Growing up here in Pambula Beach and homebrewing, to be able to get a job at a brewery in this kind of area is pretty rare. So, I'm pretty lucky I've got the best job."
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