Evandale brewery, Van Dieman Brewing, has been awarded as the Champion Independent TasmanianBrewery for 2019, and walked away with a swag of medals at the 2019 Independent Beer Awards held inMelbourne last Thursday.

Organised by the Independent Brewers Association, the Indies are judged by a respected panel ofnational and international beer judges and are an invaluable platform for brewers to benchmark theirbeers and to showcase and celebrate excellence in independent craft beer.

The Indies are an importantplatform to drive consumer awareness of the quality, diversity and excellence of independent beer.

Van Dieman Brewing successfully took out 6 medals, including a pair of coveted Gold medals for theirentirely farm sourced Max Estate Ale and the recently released Australian Spontaneous Ale,Unpredictable Spring.

Van Dieman founder & brewer Will Tatchell paid tribute to persistence andplanning in recognizing the achievement.

“From a humble plan to grow, source and brew an entirely on-farm derived beer 4 years years ago, thereward this honor delivers is immeasurable.

Our ability to foster, create and harness the environmentaround us and to deliver, for the second year running, a beer of the quality of Max and our firstspontaneous beer in Unpredictable Spring, is as much validation for our effort as it is confidence in wherewe are moving towards with our brewing and the beers we’re offering are of world class quality.”

Max was crafted from hops grown in a hop field 200m from the brewery building, barley from 300maway and malted on-site, water captured from a spring 400m away and a yeast strain indigenous to thebrewery, selectively isolated after 2.5 years of analysis.

Unpredictable Spring is also produced from all farm ingredients, however undergoes natural yeastinoculation overnight in a traditional Belgian coolship vessel, transferred to oak barrels for upwards of 3years of aging before being blended back together to produce the final product, and is a blend of 1-, 2- &3 year spontaneously fermented beer.

“Spontaneous beers have been produced for hundreds of years in Belgium, and provide a uniquesnapshot of a particular time, place & season of where they’re made. It’s a long process, but we’rethrilled with the results so far, and excited about what’s to come into the future” Tatchell said.

The quality of beers at this years Indies were again highlighted, with 1017 entries from across Australiafrom a total of 147 breweries. Van Dieman also received a silver medals for their Edward Estate Ale &Medlar, a wild ale aged on Medlar fruit, and bronze awards for their Oscar Estate IPA & Duchess NewWorld Barrel IPA.

“We’re proud that from our farm brewery in northern Tasmania we’re able to stand and deliver beers ofthis quality, and incorporate our own farm-grown ingredients into them. It shows the inherently closelinks to the land that beer holds, and that on our farm brewery, we’re continually tying those links closertogether through an entirely Ground-to-Glass methodology” Tatchell continued