Champion Winter Beer of Britain


The Champion Winter Beer of Britain is an award presented by the Campaign for Real Ale at its annual Great British Beer Festival Winter. The award is similar to the Champion Beer of Britain which is presented at the Great British Beer Festival.

Qualification and judging

As for Champion Beer of Britain, beers can qualify in three ways:
  • CAMRA tasting panels judge the beers in their geographic area of the UK. The recommendations of these panels are put forward to 6 regional panels, with the winners of these qualifying for the finals in August.
  • Votes from CAMRA members via a form in What's Brewing, the CAMRA newsletter.
  • Winning one of the 150 Beer of the Festival awards from CAMRA beer festivals held throughout the year
Nominated beers are then grouped into categories and go through several rounds of blind tasting at the Great British Beer Festival Winter. Category winners are then re-judged to determine the supreme champion — the Champion Winter Beer of Britain.

Categories

Beers are split into categories depending on their style or strength with Speciality ale categories joining in 2023 from the main Champion Beer of Britain competition.

Results

There were two National Winter Ales Festivals in 1997. The first one at the beginning of the year presented the 1996/7 awards and the other, at the end of the year, presented the 1997/8 awards. There was no festival in 1998, the next one being in January 1999.
;KeyBlue background indicates beers that were named Supreme Champion after winning in their category.Green background indicates beers that were named Supreme Winter Beer but not Supreme Champion.

Old Ale category

  • 1991: Old Ales & Strong Milds
  • 1994–1995: Old Ales & Strong Ales
  • 1996-2020: Old Ales & Strong Milds
  • 2023 onwards: Brown Ales, Red Ales, Old Ales and Strong Milds

Speciality Beers

Speciality beers moved from Champion Beer of Britain festival category