Mr Speaker honours Wychwood Brewery’s MD, Rupert Thompson
Rupert Thompson, managing director of Wychwood Brewery, has been presented with the President’s award of the All Party Parliamentary Beer Group for his:
“energy, commitment and determination in re-establishing the historic Brakspear's brewery at Wychwood in Oxfordshire and in his role as a founder/chairman of the excellent Beer Academy”.
The award, handed over by the Parliamentary Beer Group's President, Speaker of the House of Commons Michael Martin MP, will add further momentum to the growing success of Brakspear’s beers, which have been brewed at Wychwood since June 2004.
Sales of Brakspear’s 3.4% abv Bitter, described by beer writer Andrew Jefford of the Financial Times as “the only experience I know that can genuinely rival drinking a bottle of grand cru Burgundy or classed-growth Bordeaux for sheer enchantment” have risen by nearly 20% year on year, with pubs throughout the Thames Valley now stocking this iconic brew. And Brakspear’s Organic Ale has grown to be the country’s leading organic beer in the off trade, with distribution in Sainsburys, Asda, Morrisons and Waitrose at £1.69 per 500ml bottle.
The latest bottled member of the Brakspear family, the 7.2% abv Triple, which is named after the beer’s triple hopping and triple fermentation process, won a Silver in the International Beer Competition in Munich last year and is now gaining a wide range of new listings.
Robert Humphreys, secretary of the Parliamentary Beer Group commented:
“Rupert Thompson has done Britain’s beer drinkers, and the people of Oxfordshire, a great service by saving these delicious beers for posterity. And whilst rescuing Brakspear’s, he has also found time to be a founder and chairman of the Beer Academy www.beeracademy.org, a beer school set up by fifty breweries to help eveeryone to learn more about our national drink. He is a tireless champion of beer".
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