Champion Australian Brewery: TWØBAYS Takes on the NZ Beer Awards 2026
What a year it's been. And last Saturday night in Dunedin, we added another chapter to arguably TWØBAYS' biggest awards run yet - taking home the Champion Australian Brewery title at the 2026 New Zealand Beer Awards, backed by three gold medals and a bronze.
What Are the NZ Beer Awards?
The New Zealand Beer Awards (NZBA) are the most prestigious beer competition in Aotearoa, run by the Brewers Guild of New Zealand. Now in their 20th year, the Awards are recognised for the strength and rigour of their judging panel - respected experts drawn from across New Zealand, Australia, and internationally.
This year's competition attracted 660 entries from 74 breweries, judged across 15 beer classes at Riccarton Park in Christchurch before the winners were announced at a gala dinner in Dunedin on 25 July 2026. An impressive 82% of entries received a medal - a record high - reflecting the continued rise in quality across New Zealand and Australian brewing.
The Awards are open to international entrants, with dedicated Australian and international categories sitting alongside the main New Zealand trophies.
TWØBAYS at the 2026 NZ Beer Awards
In late 2025 TWØBAYS began shipping beers to New Zealand for online sales. A few months later, Garage Project began distribution TWØBAYS into bars, restaurants and bottle shops across the country. So the 2026 awards were the perfect time for us to put our beers in front of New Zealand beer judges, to get valuable feedback on where our quality stands against internationally recognised style guides. Gluten free beers are judged in the Specialty Beer Category, the broadest and most competitive class in the competition, with 77 entries - and our brewers performed exceptionally well.
Champion Australian Brewery
The headline result: TWØBAYS was named Champion Australian Brewery at the 2026 NZ Beer Awards. It's a trophy that recognises the best-performing Australian entrant across the entire competition, and it caps off a remarkable few months on the awards circuit. This is the first Champion Brewery Trophy for the brewery, and to take out the award ahead of some of the best recognised names in the Australian brewing industry shows just how far the quality of our beers has come.
Three Gold Medals
TWØBAYS were the only Australian brewery to pick up any golds at the awards. In the Specialty & Experimental class - where gluten free beers compete directly alongside the full range of barley-based craft offerings - TWØBAYS picked up gold medals for three distinct beers:
- Grouse Amber Ale (Can) - Gold
- No Doubt Stout (Can) - Gold
- IPA (Can) - Gold
Three golds. Three completely different styles. It's a clear demonstration of range and consistency — two things that define where TWØBAYS is heading as a brewery.
The GFB Draught also picked up a bronze, rounding out a four-medal haul across the night.
A Year of Awards That Keeps Growing
It's the third major awards outing of 2026 for TWØBAYS, and by any measure, it's been a remarkable run.
World Beer Cup - April 2026
The year kicked off at the World Beer Cup - widely regarded as the "Olympics of Beer" - where TWØBAYS became the only Australian brewery to medal, taking Silver in the Gluten-Free Beer category for Rum Smuggler Barrel Aged Imperial Stout. The competition saw 255 judges from 50 countries assess 8,166 entries from 1,644 breweries worldwide.
This was TWØBAYS' third consecutive year on the World Beer Cup podium: Gold for Session Ale in 2024, Gold for Pacific Ale in 2025, Silver for Rum Smuggler in 2026. Three different styles, three years in a row, on the biggest stage in global beer.
AIBAs - May 2026
Hot on the heels of the World Beer Cup, the Melbourne Royal Australian International Beer Awards - the largest annual beer competition in the world, with 2,221 entries from 379 exhibitors.
The result: seven medals - two gold, three silver, two bronze. And two standout moments:
TWØBAYS IPA received a Consistency of Excellence award after winning its third AIBA gold medal in as many years - a recognition reserved for beers that demonstrate sustained, repeatable excellence.
Rum Smuggler was shortlisted in the top five Specialty Beers out of 120 entries - the majority of which were barley-based. For a gluten free beer to be shortlisted in that company is significant.
It was also the first year TWØBAYS entered as a Medium sized brewery - a milestone in the brewery's growth.
Consistency, variety and quality
2026 beer awards around the world have sent a consistent message: gluten free beer doesn't have to mean compromise.
What makes 2026 special isn't just the medal count - it's the variety of beers being recognised. A Barrel Aged Imperial Stout. A Session Ale. A Pacific Ale. A Stout. An IPA. An Amber Ale. The range of styles winning at the highest levels of competition proves that TWØBAYS' brewers aren't working within limitations. They're just brewing great beer.
Cheers to the brew crew. 🍻
The full 2026 NZ Beer Awards results are available at brewersguild.org.nz.
