Yeastie Boys win big in Hong Kong

Yeastie Boys win big in Hong Kong

Pot Kettle Black crowned Champion Beer at Hong Kong International Beer Awards

Press release, Yeastie Boys
3rd September 2014
For immediate use

New Zealand brewing company Yeastie Boys pulled off another big win in Asia, when their porter – Pot Kettle Black – beat more than 400 beers from around the world to be crowned Champion Beer at yesterday’s Hong Kong International Beer Awards.

Pot Kettle Black, Yeastie Boys’ game changing porter, was awarded champion beer in the Black IPA category before going on the beat all of the other category winners to pick up the gong for Champion Beer of Hong Kong. The win in Hong Kong follows Pot Kettle Black’s champion beer accolade at BeerFest Asia, Singapore, in 2012. “These kind of wins are very rare, so to pick up two in as many years is simply incredible” stated Yeastie Boys’ Head Boy Stu McKinlay. “We were thrilled to win the Black IPA category, as the beer really teeters between that and the Porter class, but to take out another champion beer of show is absolutely mindbending. We’re up against breweries that make more beer in a day than we do in a year, and have all the technical and sensory analysis that comes with such volume, so this is an amazing testament to true artisan brewing. It is still quite hard to believe.”

The win is a perfect start for Yeastie Boys new foray into Hong Kong, where they only just began exporting to in May. “These sorts of things always have the potential to open some pretty interesting doors for a small company with no sales team and very little marketing budget. It’s undoubtedly a boon for Red Willow Wines, our distributor in Hong Kong, who took a leap of faith in importing our beer on reputation alone” said Yeastie Boys co-director, Sam Possenniskie. “Winning two huge awards like this, within a couple of years, proves that we’ve really got Pot Kettle Black dialled in. It gives interested buyers a great indication that our beers are not only irreverent and innovative but, more importantly, they are consistently deemed world class by our industry peers.”

Yeastie Boys' beers have been contract brewed through Invercargill Brewery since 2008, and have an excellent track record winning awards, but growth has until now been stymied by capacity issues. Stu McKinlay went on to praise Yeastie Boys’ strategic brewing partner. “Invercargill have just unleashed a massive increase in capacity and this was one of the first batches through their brand new brewery. Head brewer Steve Nally and his team at Invercargill are doing an amazing job for us. We've pushed them in regards to volume, and the creative use of their brewery, but they just keep on coming up trumps. We’ve said for a while that it is becoming a partnership not unlike Hadlee and Chatfield in the 1980s. Yeastie Boys may be taking all the metaphorical wickets at one end but we couldn't do it without the ‘line and length’ of Invercargill’s outstanding brewing and packaging team."

The Yeastie Boys, who both held down day jobs in unrelated industries until McKinlay left his job 4 weeks ago, are certainly making some noise upon taking on the beer world full time. In winning the award, Yeastie Boys join an auspicious list of former champions including BrewDog (Scotland), Iron Fist (USA), Shepherd Neame (England), St Paul (Belgium) and two-time winner Feral Brewing (Australia).

Pot Kettle Black and other Yeastie Boys’ beers are available in Hong Kong through Red Willow and around the world through Federal Merchants (New Zealand), Phoenix Beers (Australia), Shelton Brothers (USA), Whisk-e Ltd (Japan), A New Wave (Scotland), SR Wine (Norway) and Taps Beer Bar (Malaysia).

Ends

About Yeastie Boys:
Yeastie Boys is a multiple award-winning Wellington meta-brewery having just that little bit more fun than most everyone else. The brainchild of Stu McKinlay and Sam Possenniskie - two of New Zealand's leading beer activists – Yeastie Boys is one of only two breweries to have ever won two trophies for a single beer at the Brewers Guild of New Zealand beer awards (for their flagship Pot Kettle Black). They are also one of the few breweries to regularly receive hate mail but are pleased to report they occasionally receive love letters too! Yeastie Boys occasionally use Comic Sans in their press releases and legal documentation, just because everyone else hates it so much. This one uses Times New Roman to convey the serious nature of such a win.

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