Champion Beer of Wales

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The Champion Beer of Wales is a beer award presented annually by the Campaign for Real Ale at the Great Welsh Beer & Cider Festival in Cardiff, Wales.

The award is selected by a multi-tier system. First, individual branches of CAMRA nominate beers that have been in regular, non-seasonal production for at least one year from Welsh breweries in a series of CAMRA-defined categories. The most commonly nominated beers in each category are then presented to tasting panels, with one panel consisting of four to six people tasting each beer in a particular style in a blind tasting. These tasting panels are selected from CAMRA members and other individuals, and from the brewing industry (although representatives of nominated beers' breweries are excluded). The winners in each of these cateogries, and in categories with a large number of nominees the runners-up as well, are then presented to a new panel consisting of local celebrities, politicians, and brewers, who, again blind tasting, selects an overall champion, silver medalist, and bronze medalist. Awrds are given for the top beer in each category and the three overall top places.

Current & Previous winners are summarized^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5]:

Year	Gold	Silver	Bronze
1996	Plassey Brewery Dragon’s Breath
1997	Plassey Brewery Dragon’s Breath	Bullmastiff Brewery Son of a Bitch	Tomos Watkins OSB
1998	Flannery’s Oatmeal Stout
1999	Bullmastiff Gold	Tomos Watkin Old Style Bitter	Pembroke Brewery Old Nobbie Stout
2000	Bullmastiff Gold	Warcop Pit Prop	Plassey Dragon’s Breath
2001	Tomos Watkin Merlin's Stout	Brains Dark	Swansea Brewery Original Wood
2002	Bryncelyn Brewery Buddy Marvelous	Bullmastiff Gold	Brains Dark
2003	Bryncelyn Oh Boy	Tomos Watkin Merlin Stout	Bryncelyn Buddy Marvelous
2004	Breconshire Brewery Golden Valley	Bullmastiff Son of a Bitch	Bryncelyn Buddy Marvelous
2005	Bullmastiff Son of a Bitch	Tomos Watkin Merlin Stout	Bryncelyn Oh Boy
2006	Otley O8	Brains Dark	Otley OG