Colin Stronge, who works at Salt Beer Factory in Saltaire, is celebrating after being named brewer of the year at The Brewers Journal’s Brewers Choice Awards.

He attended the ceremony, held in London on December 9, and says he was surprised to take the honour back to the Bradford district. He beat off competition from Matt Clarke, co-founder of Lakes Brew Co based in Kendal, Cumbria, for the prize.

Colin, 42, has vast experience in the industry, having worked at a host of breweries across the UK since 2000. He has worked at sites in Liverpool, Manchester, Buxton, in Derbyshire, and Scotland.

He has worked at Salt Beer Factory for the last four years and loves his job at the ever-developing site. The £1.7 million micro-brewery opened up in October 2018.

He said: “It feels very good. It was very unexpected. I’m happy just doing the work really. It is very humbling to win this award. This is the first award I have won for myself.

“I absolutely love what I do. I love the ins and outs of it, the physical graft and the scientific part of the job. It exercises the mind and body at the same time. People think that brewers sample beers all day, that’s the smallest part of our job.

“During lockdown we started selling Salt Beer Factory products in supermarkets. We have gone from strength to strength.”

Salt Beer Factory tweeted its congratulations, tweeting: “We’re incredibly proud to announce that our very own head brewer – Colin Stronge, has been awarded Brewer of The Year by The Brewers Journal.

“We are so proud of you and so thankful for everywhere you’ve taken the SALT brand and the places that are yet to come. Cheers!”

Colin’s award continues a successful 2022 for Salt Beer Factory. This year saw the launch of the ‘The Final Straw’ which is stocked in 500 branches of Tesco.

Salt teamed up with the world’s first plastic-offsetting service and ccean clean-up organisation – Seven Clean Seas to launch the hazy craft pale ale.

The microbrewery has already won a series of accolades having previously won at the World Beer Awards, where it scooped UK gold medal in the Black IPA class for ‘Answer is None’ and UK bronze in the American IPAs for ‘Alpaca DDH IPA’.