SIBA award winners ‘blown away’ with BeerX victory

Overall Champion of the Cask in the 2026 ‘Indie Beer Awards’ was Almasty Brewery in Newcastle with its 6% ABV ‘Believe’ New England-style IPA; Lakes Brew Co in Kendall won Overall Champion in Keg with its decadent 8.4% ABV ‘Don’t Make Me Run’ imperial stout; and Baker’s Dozen in Stamford won Overall Champion in the bottle/can competition with its bright and refreshing 3.2% ABV ‘Agua Fresca Sour’.

With all three breweries now going forward automatically into the World Beer Cup in the US where they will face worldwide competition.

Baker’s Dozen, which is operated by husband and wife team Dean and Jill Baker, were delighted to accept their award.

Genuinely overwhelmed

Dean said: “[It’s] just absolutely incredible, we’re just genuinely overwhelmed to win the best beer in the country it’s just not something that was even on our radar.

“We brew pale ales and bitters as our bread and butter as a brewery so to win with a session strength sour beer is just incredible. I guess we’ll have to make it again now.”

Jill added: “I’m absolutely blown away, it was our 10-year anniversary last year so we entered all of these beers that mean a lot to us and we’re really proud of – this beer came about because of a regular customer of ours who runs a Mexican food truck and loves the combination of watermelon and hibiscus, and we thought that combo would just make a great sour beer.

“We know it’s a bit mad and not what we normally do, so to have judges recognise it at the UK’s biggest beer awards is just huge for us.”

Demand never been higher

Judged by brewers and industry experts and organised by SIBA at its flagship BeerX UK event in Liverpool, the Indie Beer Awards 2026 run across a huge range of beer style categories.

SIBA chief executive Andy Slee said: “The demand for independent beer has never been higher and it’s easy to see why when trying some of these award-winners: varied, exciting and all absolutely delicious, I want to congratulate all of the winners but in particular our overall champions who are truly the very best of the best in the UK right now.”

The Indie Beer Awards 2026 took place at BeerX, which was held at Exhibition Centre Liverpool, on Wednesday to Thursday 18-19 March, and attracted a record 3,700 delegates to a packed conference of talks, seminars, tasting sessions, and, of course, the beer awards, where the honours were presented by beer writer Pete Brown.