Redoak's Chateau Sour awarded Champion Bottled Beer at Sydney Royal Beer and Cider Show

Sydney craft brewing company Redoak was announced as the winner of Champion Bottled Beer at the Sydney Royal Beer and Cider Show Awards, held on Friday, September 19 at Sydney Showground.

The winning beer was the craft brewery's Chateau Sour. This award comes on the back of the same beer being awarded Supreme Champion at the International Beer Awards in London earlier in the month.

Redoak founder and master brewer David Hollyoak has been making the Chateau Sour for about the last five years, says his sister and business partner Janet Hollyoak.

"Dave loves to make all his beers as little homebrew first," she says. "He'd been enjoying it for many a year, god love him, before he shared it with us!"

The beer, a Flemish red ale, is brewed with a Belgian Chateau malt which gives it a beautiful, distinct red colour, says Hollyoak.

"Sour beers are quite a new thing to the modern world," she says. "They were very popular hundreds of years ago and now we're starting to see them rise in popularity again."

"Dave has always enjoyed sour beer and he could never understand why breweries didn't make it. I think after making sour beer for so many years he now knows exactly why - it's an incredibly detailed and difficult beer to make."

Hollyoak says Redoak's two recent wins are sweeter because the beer is such a challenge to brew.

"A lot of the brewers around the world are pretty proud of us having achieved these two wins because they know exactly what it takes to make a sour beer," she says.

The Chateau Sour is only available from the Redoak Boutique Beer Cafe (201 Clarence Street, Sydney), however the Hollyoaks are looking for a distributor.

"We would love to get it out there because people are absolutely loving it."

Redoak celebrates its 10 year anniversary on October 8.