The winners of the 2020 Beer & Brewer Awards People’s Choice Awards as voted on by the public at large are: Best Packaging – No Coast, Green Beacon; Best Name – Zero Mississippi, Mountain Culture; and Best Beer – Amongst the Bines, Wildflower.

These awards feature in the Summer 2020/21 edition of Beer & Brewer. Head here to discover all of our great subscription offers.

Best Beer Packaging: No Coast, Green Beacon

Like Lawrence of Arabia lost, with no coast in sight, Green Beacon’s winning design beautifully and simply surmises what the brewery’s intention for the IPA was.

“No Coast was brewed to be a beer that we at Green Beacon would love to drink, drawing upon the best characteristics of East and West Coast styles, leaving us with ‘No Coast’. The tongue-in-cheek nature of the primary graphic, classic pop culture tilting, and bright pastel colour palette provides an approachable, not-so-serious product identity,” designer Charles McKay said, who wears many hats for Green Beacon, including venue manager at their Brisbane brewpub.

“Packaging is a really important medium for us, to do justice to the hard work our production team does on perfecting their recipes. Each product they create has its own character and identity, and it’s important to reflect a strong identity on the packaging that best characterises the liquid contents, all the while being approachable and enticing to the consumer.”
greenbeacon.com.au

Best Beer Name: Zero Mississippi, Mountain Culture

A near death experience for Mountain Culture’s DJ McCready and Pat Thiering was the inspiration for this triple IPa’s name that takes its cue from the child’s play way of determining how far a storm is away (one Mississippi, two Mississippi).When out canyoning in the mountains near their Katoomba brewbub a freak Winter storm rolled in and before they knew what was happening, it was zero Mississippi time.

“I think what happened was that lightning struck right above us in the canyon and we got this indirect lightning bolt run through a boulder and then through us,” DJ said.

“I think it’s the fastest I’ve ever abseiled out of a canyon in my entire life! When we got to the bottom we were like ‘that could have been really bad!’. But as usual we brought a couple of beers with us and downed them pretty quick!

“It was the perfect name for our next beer and I’m not sure if it was the fact I was pretty much hit by lightning or what, but I put a whole heap of hops in it too!”
mountainculture.com.au

Best Beer Release: Amongst the Bines, Wildflower

It appears “a golden barrel-matured Australian wild ale, fermented wholly by wild yeast and bacteria residing on an entire organically grown hop bine and freshly picked wet hops from Ryefield Hops in Bemboka” was the people’s kind of thing in 2020!

Aged in barrel for one year, and then dry-hopped with a few hops from 2020 before bottling, this is as experimental as a very experimental Wildflower gets.

“I suppose people’s acceptance to taste a variety of drinks has shifted more than their actual palates,” founder Topher Boehm said.

“For a fully wild ferment it’s surprisingly clean. It has aromas of lemon zest, citrus sorbet and herbaceous grassy, earthy hop characters. French oak spice and subtle funk notes add complexity on the back. The palate is full of fresh hop characters, soft vanilla and aged Sauvignon blanc vinous elements.”
wildflowerbeer.com

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