Another week, another set of awards for Sydney's Redoak. Since we last posted articles on their wins at the International Beer Challenge in London and at the Sydney Royal Beer & Cider Show, their venue has picked up a best "Specialty Venue" title and now they're proud recipients of another swag of titles at the World Beer Awards.
In 2013, they took out the title of World's Best Lambic for their Blackberry Wheat Beer and Best Strong Dark for their Wee Heavy. This year, they have followed that up with World's Best Flavoured Beer and Best Wood Aged Beer for the Special Reserve, a barley wine that spends time in several types of oak and shares the characteristics of an aged Pedro Ximenez, and Best Oud Bruin for Chateau Sour, which was also the beer named Supreme Champion at the International Beer Challenge and which took out top honours in Sydney.
On top of that, Redoak's much-loved Baltic Porter took out Best Strong Porter and World's Best Stout & Porter. Such success is bound to increase demand for the beers, which are almost exclusively only available at the brewery's Clarence Street venue in Sydney's CBD. But it looks like drinkers overseas are more likely to get their hands on the likes of the Special Reserve and Baltic Porter as their brewer takes a stand against the excise tax applied to such beers in Australia.
"Well, it's an understatement to say that we are completely blown away with this result," says head brewer and co-owner David Hollyoak, "especially following closely our other recent awards. It's amazing to have two beers judged the overall best in their category.
"We are currently focusing on getting the beers ready for export as we can't afford the excise tax in Australia. Just the excise tax alone on a carton of the Special Reserve is $40 per carton and the Baltic Porter is $30. Whereas we will look to export them into America and Europe where the tax is about 90 cents per carton."
David is also a founder and chairman of the Australian Real Craft Brewers Association (ARCBA), which represents a number of independent Australian breweries. Last year, it published a White Paper looking at the issue of excise tax that led to a number of responses, which are gathered [here (with the paper itself) on Australian Brews News.
"Even though the Special Reserve is a wood-aged barley wine, it falls under the definition of beer and so pays excise tax," says David. "If it fell under the definition of wine, wine equalisation tax (WET) applies and as a small producer/winery, we would not have to pay any tax at all.
"It's a real shame for consumers and the industry that Australian small brewers are not taxed in the same way as other small brewers around the world or not taxed like Australian small winemakers. Australians are missing out on variety and choice in beer due to the heavy tax burden."
NB A consideration of this issue in which the author, Jared Birbeck of Birbeck's Brewing, suggests possible alternative solutions, such as a move to a volumetric tax across all alcoholic beverages, was also published in full on Australian Brews News here.
As for the World Beer Awards, it is an annual global competition that selects, awards and promotes the "World's Best Beers" to consumers and the trade throughout the world. Beers must be generally available and for sale in bottles or cans to be eligible.
Judging is blind with regional style heats held in Asia, Europe and the Americas. All regions have their own chairman and group of judges who select the style winners in their region. Style winners from all regions are then tasted against each other to select the World's Best Style. From these world winners are selected the World's Best categories, from which the World's Best Beer is chosen.
The title of 2014 World's Best Beer went to Tongerlo Blond, a 6 percent pale beer from Belgium's Haacht Brewery. You can view the full results here.
