The team at Bristol craft brewery Butcombe are toasting victory in another awards scheme, this time for their gluten-free beer.
Having twice tasted success with its Goram IPA Zero in the World Alcohol-Free Awards, the brewery’s Stateside Session IPA has landed silver in the recent year’s Free From Awards. 
The UK’s only accolades dedicated to free-from food and drink, the awards were launched in 2008 and have since become a highly anticipated event in the foodie calendar, attracting thousands of entries from across the country.
The Gluten Free Beer category has been part of the awards since 2010, with organisers saying this year’s entries offered a very good representation of the fast-growing gluten-free beer market in the UK.
Butcombe’s Stateside Session IPA faced stiff competition at the category’s blind tasting, emerging with a silver medal behind joint gold winners Sussex-based Gun Brewery’s Gun Control Table Beer and Dreamcatcher Pale ale, made by North Pier Brew Co in Sunderland.
Butcombe describes Stateside Session IPA, which is available in 500ml bottles, as “a punchy session IPA made from the best of the best American and English hops and malts. A refreshing transatlantic marriage of citrus, resinous aromatics and malty bite.”
The awards judges called it a great example of a sessionable IPA, adding it was “a nice, bright flavourful IPA with more than a nod to the US” and a “really tasty, full-bodied beer – great depth of flavour, nice slightly caramel colouring, with a taste that lingers on the tongue”.
Wrington-based Butcombe, which has been making beer since 1978, is now part of Channel Islands-based Liberation Group.
Liberation marketing director Bruce Rowland: “We’re delighted that our Stateside Session IPA has been recognised at these incredibly prestigious awards.
“Our brewing team consistently innovate and adapt, ensuring we have products that appeal to modern tastes and lifestyles that are authentic and taste great. This award pays testament to their hard work, passion and dedication.”
Stateside Session IPA is not Butcombe’s only gluten-free beer. Two years ago it launched Gold GF, a gluten-free variant of its ever-popular golden ale Butcombe Gold.
The brewery said both also worked well as the perfect ingredient in gluten-free recipes such as beer-battered fish and chips and steak-and-ale pie – particular favourites in Butcombe pubs.
Butcombe’s range of beers also includes Original bitter, Underfall Lager and Rarebreed Pale Ale.
It also owns 137 pubs – many of them gastropubs or inns with accommodation – following Liberation Group’s acquisition of London-based Cirrus Inns last December and its integration into Butcombe.
