Scottish Courage, Adnams, and Salopian Brewery receive awards for beer quality and brewery hygiene in first national UK beer awards scheme
At a special award ceremony held at the Ardencote Manor Hotel, Warwickshire, UK, the winners of the Oxoid Awards for Beer Quality and Brewery Hygiene, received their prizes.
In this, the first year of these awards which are organised in conjunction with the Institute and Guild of Brewing, the judges (George Philliskirk, head of technical department, Carlsberg-Tetley Brewing; David Long, director of brewing, British Beer and Pub Association; and Alison Smith, marketing manager, Oxoid) were impressed by the fact that breweries of every size entered and could demonstrate significant improvements, with the winners chosen for the wider implications to the industry as a whole. First prize went to Alison Aitchison, Scottish Courage Brewing, for her work in the design and implementation of a novel hygiene training package for all brewing production and associated personnel.
Having completed her diploma in advanced food hygiene, Alison recognised the need for a hygiene training course that is specific to brewing.
Although various hygiene awareness initiatives were available to the food industry, none of them met all the needs of the brewing industry.
"Brewing microbiology is very different to general food microbiology," Alison explains.
"We look for a different set of organisms - beer spoilers - for a start, and also the jargon is very different. It's important that we have something more specific to the industry, with subject matter that is entirely relevant to brewing." Encouraged by her colleagues, Alison designed her own training course and, recognising the importance of accreditation, approached the Royal Environmental Health Institute of Scotland (Rehis).
The result is a 'Certificate in Brewery Hygiene Awareness', which is awarded jointly by Scottish Courage and the Rehis.
Scottish Courage is the first brewing group in the UK to approach hygiene training in this way. The judges agreed that gaining external accreditation for the scheme was a substantial factor in the success of Alison's entry and that the programme had beneficial implications for the industry as a whole.
Second prize went to Philip May of Adnams, Suffolk.
Nominated by the brewery manager, Bill Barker, Philip has been employed for many years in the yeast room at Adnams. Over the last two to three years, he has demonstrated a high level of enthusiasm to take on board additional responsibilities, including yeast viability and consistency monitoring, microbiological testing throughout the brewery, and the testing of detergent/sterilant strengths.
The judges commented on Philip's obvious contribution to product quality and operations at Adnams.
Third prize was taken by Martin Barry, Salopian Brewery, Shropshire.
Martin has developed the brewery's existing cask washing regime to improve the way that the company operates this vital part of beer production.
The main benefits, after implementing this project, were an increase in actual and perceived beer quality (reduction in spoilt beer); reduced use of resources; heightened awareness of hygiene issues; increased sales and profitability leading to a greater spend on better equipment to further improve working practices.
The judges felt that this entry was very relevant to the micro brewer and were pleased to see that the data that had been included demonstrated real improvement.
