SPECIAL REPORT: World Beer Award winners

Tongerlo Blond of Belgium has been named as the ‘World’s Best Beer 2014' in this year's World Beer Awards.

In the eighth annual World Beer Awards, beer poured in from all corners of the globe to compete for the coveted title of ‘World’s Best Beer’. The international judging panel had to judge around 700 beers from 30 different countries over four rounds. In the end, it was the Haacht Brewery's Tongerlo Blond that claimed the top prize despite strong competition from Asia and The Americas.

The Belgian beer faced tough competition from the winners of the remaining seven categories:

World's Best Lager  Samuel Adams, Double Bock

World's Best Wheat Beer  Brasil Kirin, Eisenbahn Weizenbock

World's Best Dark Beer  Malheur, 12

World's Best Speciality Beer  Samuel Adams, Roggen Wolf

World's Best Pale Beer  Haacht Brewery, Tongerlo Blond

World's Best Flavoured Beer  Redoak, Special Reserve

World's Best Stout & Porter  Redoak, Baltic Porter

World's Best Sour Beer  Mort Subite, Oude Geuze

The World's Best Label title went to the Great Heck Brewery's Black Jesus (pictured left).

Adrian Tierney-Jones, chairman of the World Beer Awards says: “After three arduous rounds of beer tasting and evaluating the merits of beers from all over the world, I’m very pleased to see the results of our hard labours.

"The spread of winners shows the quality of beers from all over the world and I’m especially pleased to see Brazilian beers amongst the winners. It’s slightly disappointing not to see any British beers as the final winners, but on the other hand plenty have taken category awards including Thwaites, BrewDog and Harveys.

"Finally, I would like to thank the judges for all their work — they deserve a drink!”

You can find more information on all of the World Drinks Awards, including results and tasting notes of past awards, at www.worlddrinksawards.com.

7 October 2014 - Rebecca Sterritt Paragraph Publishing, content manager