The Melbourne Royal Australian International Beer Awards is the largest annual beer competition in the world, judging both draught and packaged beer. In 2026, the Awards received more than 2,200 entries from 381 breweries across 22 countries. It is a valuable benchmarking opportunity for breweries of all sizes to secure internationally recognised credentials that will help their beer stand out in a crowd.
Two familiar names delivered standout results at this year’s AIBA’s. For the second time in three years, King Road Brewing Co took home Champion Small Australian Brewery, and our mates from across the ditch, Altitude Brewing, claimed back-to-back Best Modern Pale Ale trophies, both sponsored by HPA. If that wasn’t enough, King Road bagged 10 medals and Champion Australian Independent Brewery, whilst Altitude scored 20 medals from 20 entries, Best Pilsner and Champion Small International Brewery.
Rather than publish two separate features, we’ve combined both conversations into a snapshot of continued excellence from two of our mates who are making bloody good beers. We sat down with King Road’s Head Brewer Steve Wearing and Altitude’s Founder Elliot Menzies to ask them about their recent AIBA’s hauls.
Congrats to both of you on your continued success at the AIBA’s. You both took home multiple trophies and a slew of medals, what does this kind of recognition mean to you?
Elliot Menzies, Altitude: Well, I think feelings like that are pretty hard to articulate frankly! Most words would be unrepresentative, beeped out, or both. Pretty blown away to have such consistent success and in such competitive categories – unreal.
Steve Wearing, King Road: It’s incredible recognition for the brewing team, they put a huge amount of effort into all of our beers and it’s amazing to have them judged to be amongst the best in the country.
You’ve tallied strong medal counts across your breweries this year. What’s the secret to making award-winning beers across multiple categories?
Elliot: There is no secret, we do the same thing everyone else does. If there is one thing that separates us, it’s the cohesion and synergy of our entire team. It might sound a little corny, but the fun we have together in our roles lets our passion show, and that passion is real for everyone in the business. We can all focus on the areas we are best at and the end result is the sum of its parts.
Steve: There are no secrets in brewing. We all help each other out and share knowledge. There are a lot of factors that go into making quality beer, starting with high quality and fresh raw materials. From there, really tight processes in place throughout the entire brewing and packaging process. It’s incredibly easy to screw up a batch of beer, so the team are hyper focused and take the time to do things properly, every time.
Of your medalling beers this year, which 3 mean the most to you?
Elliot: Window of Opportunity would be one – a real labour of love with hand-picked and destemmed flowers and carefully controlled infusions. Powder Day is another, always refined and now a multiple award-winner across competitions. And Zen Shiro is the third – a sake pilsner that takes forever in tank but is incredibly niche and rewarding when it lands right.
Steve: The NZ Cold IPA did all the heavy lifting for us this year – it scored 19.5/20 which is incredible. XPA picking up gold is also really exciting, trying to get the right balance in a lower ABV beer is really challenging so it’s rewarding to see that one do well. Then the third gold going to our seasonal release American Pale Ale is cool, that’s a bit of a selfish beer, brewed because it’s the kind of beer the brewing team really enjoy drinking. It’s great to see the judges agree with us.
