Thank you!

Huge thanks to the brewers, designers, drinkers and spectators who helped make the second annual Chertsey St George's Beer Challenge such a success. Special thanks go out to Hugo for yet another diligent and sparkling turn as our judge, and Tony for gifting us the function room at the Crown for the day. He's apparently quite a nice bloke really.

There were 18 beers entered by 16 brewers, all of whom put a fabulous amount of time and effort into their entries. At the current rate of growth, in 18 years the beer challenge will feature more than a million brewers and we will have collectively caused the collapse of conglomerate brewing in the UK. Reach for the stars...

The beers ranged from "skunky" to "excellent", and their labels from "filthy" to "inspired". As for the names, anyone who doesn't spend the rest of the week humming "I can't believe it's not butter beer" clearly wasn't in the room.

I'll be posting the results, etc., in more detail shortly, but in the meantime here's a list of the winners, FYI. If you have any photographs of the day, can you email me asap and I'll set up a Flickr stream for your collective delectation and pleasure.

Best beer: Romp of Runnymede; brewer: Big Gay Al
Best name: I can't believe it's not butter beer; brewer: Kayte and a cast of a thousand munchkins
Best label: Yellow and Blue; brewer Anna R and the Swedish Dream Team

Until the next time, remember...

Any idiot can drink a beer. It takes a legend to make one.