Home-brewer stuns with international gold

Ian Williams' nano brewery business, WilliamsWarn Personal Brewery, was used by Santiago Aon Ratto to brew his award-winning pilsner. Photo / Natalie Slade

An Auckland home-brewer has beaten big commercial players and received top honours at the Asia Beer Awards.

Sales executive Santiago Aon Ratto took away the gold award last week for a pilsner he concocted using a WilliamsWarn personal brewing machine at his home in Mission Bay.

The Asia Beer awards are part of Singapore's Beerfest Asia and attract hundreds of entries from a number of countries.

Ratto said the winning brew was only the third batch of beer he had made and used a recipe prepared by WilliamsWarn founder Ian Williams.

"I was very happy with the final product. I'm not a trained brew master and I haven't had the WilliamsWarn for long, so to make the best pilsner in the Asia Pacific region in just my third batch is absolutely incredible," Ratto said.

New Zealand brewer Yeastie Boys also scooped up honours at the event, scoring the champion award for one of its porters.

Previous local winners include Marlborough's Moa Brewery, which took away 12 awards in 2011.

The WilliamsWarn brewery was put on show during last year's Rugby World Cup New Zealand Showcase in the Cloud at Queens Wharf.

Retailing at $6500, the machine claims to take "all the errors" out of home-brewing and reduce the time needed to make a batch.

According to the company, it has already sold the 70 units made as part of its initial run and is now working on a second generation of the personal brewery due out later this year.