Tauranga brewers win big at Beervana

Tauranga brewers Dallas Miller and Mark Morrison created the winning beer in the 2014 Black Rock Home Brew Competition held at Beervana in Wellington at the weekend, with their Death Valley Pilsner.

One of 95 entries entered into the competition this year, the standard was very high, according to Head Judge Kirsten Taylor.

"A lot of the beers were of commercial quality, some of them very complex and technically difficult to get right," she said, who is also Black Rocks' Product Development Brewer.

"The winning beer was a late hopped pilsner and was absolutely beautiful."

The second placing beer was Ulysses Flanders Red Ale, which was brewed by Brendan Bransgrove, who won the competition in 2013.

"This beer was also exceptional," she said.

"Technically it's a very complex beer to make and it was better than many of the commercially available beers of this style."

In third place, was a saison (all grain recipe), by Wellington based trio: Alex McKenzie, Lindsay Welsh and Phillip Murphy.