Back in the middle of May and with lockdown in full swing, Palmers were invited to enter their bottled ales into the Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA) first ever ‘Digital Champions Beer Festival’.

Entrants were required to send in samples of each ale in plain, de-branded packaging to SIBA for distribution to a series of ‘beer expert’ judges who formed online Zoom panels that tasted and scored each category.

Beers were initially judged regionally. We were delighted to find out last week that Palmers 200 had won the GOLD award in the ‘Premium Bitters 4.5 to 6.4%’ category, with Tally Ho! also winning GOLD in ‘British Dark Beers 4.5 to 6.4%’ group.

A fantastic honour to have two of our bottled ales sitting as best in class, amongst some very well-regarded competition.

The Gold winners from each region were then judged in the National finals with the hope of being crowned ‘Champion of Champions’. The expert panel again looked favourably upon our ales, with a GOLD for Palmers 200 to become the SIBA National Champion Bottle/Can Premium Bitter 2020.

It is thrilling that Palmers 200 has picked up this award, triumphing above the thousands of entries to win in the South West and then seeing off stiff competition from the other eight regions to be the best bottled Premium Bitter in the country.

Tally Ho! also continued its run of form in the national awards, winning BRONZE in the Dark Beers class, adding to it’s current status as SIBA South West champion cask British dark beer (4.6-6.4%) and SIBA overall champion cask beer of the South West.

Head Brewer, Darren Batten said “As a brewer it makes me proud, as a drinker it makes me happy and as a supplier it makes me grateful to our customers, for their continued support in what have been some very challenging times over the past few months”

The full range of Palmers bottled ale are available at the Palmers Wine Store- both online and in store to enjoy at home, or even better- at one of our pubs!