The only gold medal at a major beer competition in London is taken by the tiny brewery – The Basque Oak Brewery. Spain is hardly known for beer but this brewery represented the country in the competition and made it proud in the whole beer industry by winning two medals and two special awards.

The Spanish Stout Black Gold and the Belgian Ale AKUA won in total four awards at 2018 London Beer Competition which was held on March 8-9. The only Gold medal was taken by the Black Gold and AKUA was honoured with a Bronze medal. Apart from this, Black Gold was also entitled with two more awards, Best Beer of the Year and Best Beer of the Year by Quality.

Black Gold from Basque Oak Brewery is a medium-intensity dark beer with flavours like roasted coffee, fruity and bittersweet with hints of alcohol. It is a perfect beer to pair with beef, pork ribs, lamb and assorted cheeses. It can be also paired with desserts like pie, vanilla ice cream, and chocolate brownies.

AKUA is named from Ghanaian language which means – born on Tuesday. This light and easy to drink beer is perfect at any time. It is made with hop and malt which give it a light body and creamy white foam. This pale golden beer has a citric and floral aroma which gives your palate a very refreshing feeling.

Roman Matcoschi, the CEO of Basque Oak Brewery says that he wanted to tell a story by this brewery. He says, “I live in a town called Gernika, I wanted to establish the brewery there. Then I started looking for stories rooted in the Basque Country, which is how we found out that for centuries people used to gather under the oak tree. The oak tree was the place where people used to meet for a dialogue, where on Sundays families and friends used to reunite after attending mass in the village church. It is said that even the boards of Biscay met under the oak. The oak is a sign of nobility, strength, robustness, elegance, greatness, quality − that is what we want to convey with our brand and the beers we make.” The Basque Oak Brewery currently has six beer styles - Red Ale, American IPA, Pale Ale, Belgian Blonde Ale, Imperial Stout and Double IPA.

The London Beer Competition is back after the huge success of its inaugural year 2018. It is going to be held on March 21-22, 2019 in London. The competition will judge the beer for the same criteria as before i.e. beer’s quality, packaging, and value for its price. Enter your beer in this prestigious beer competition if you want to measure it using these key criteria and see how a real-world consumer will rate it. You can register your interest here.