Brewer of the Year

"It is a tremendous honour for both Burton and for me personally, to be recognized by this prestigious award. I was also thrilled that people are now starting to wake up to the enormous potential of matching beer and food at top restaurants. We have had a beer and food menu at the Brewery Tap restaurant at the Coors Visitors Centre for some time and the response from visitors has been tremendous." - Steve Wellington

Steve Wellington, head brewer of Worthington's White Shield Brewery in Burton upon Trent , has been voted 'Brewer of the Year' by the All Party Parliamentary Beer Group at a ceremony which also named super-chef Michel Roux, chef-patron of the two Michelin star Le Gavroche restaurant in London, as this year's 'Beer Drinker of the Year'.

Steve's award for Brewer of the Year was given by the Beer Group's chairman, John Grogan MP, in recognition of his skill in brewing one of Britain's oldest bottle-conditioned ales, Worthington's White Shield, which in 2006 achieved the title 'Champion Bottle-Conditioned Beer of Britain.'

Steve Wellington of the White Shield Brewery said:

'It is a tremendous honour for both Burton and for me personally, to be recognized by this prestigious award. I was also thrilled that people are now starting to wake up to the enormous potential of matching beer and food at top restaurants. We have had a beer and food menu at the Brewery Tap restaurant at the Coors Visitors Centre for some time and the response from visitors has been tremendous.'

Super-Chef Michel Roux in his acceptance speech also thanked Coors Brewers for the help they had given him in establishing the first beer list ever in the history of Le Gavroche restaurant, set up by his father Albert and his uncle Michel in 1967.

White Shield was first brewed in the 1820s and by 1971 it was one of only 5 bottled-conditioned beers that were still available in the UK (there are now over 800). It has led the resurgence of interest in these live, un-pasteurised beers and it has consistently been voted as being one of the world's truly great beers.

Defiant survivor of 1820's India Pale Ale tradition, when only the most flavoursome and highly hopped of beers endured the arduous voyage round the Cape of Good Hope to India, White Shield is bottled live and matures with age. Like fine cask beer, bottled-conditioned White Shield boasts a small amount of William Worthington's feisty dual yeast, and will mature for at least 3 years after shipping from the nation's oldest micro-brewery in Burton on Trent.

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