Auckland sales executive Santiago Aon Ratto has stunned the global beer community, winning Gold at the 2012 Asian Beer Awards for his pilsner, which he brewed in a WilliamsWarn Personal Brewery at his Mission Bay home.

This is the first time a beer brewed on such a small scale has won at the Asian Beer Awards.

 Ian Williams, inventor of the WilliamsWarn Personal Brewery and award-winning brew master, helped Aon Ratto formulate the recipe for the winning pilsner and then left him to make the beer himself – a process that took only nine days.

 “I was very happy with the final product. I’m not a trained brew master and I haven’t had the WilliamsWarn for long, so to make the best pilsner in the Asia Pacific region in just my third batch is absolutely incredible,” says Aon Ratto.

 Williams, who is also director of WilliamsWarn, says the Pilsner category is the biggest category in the competition, with Lager/Pilsner beers representing 95 percent of the world beer market by volume consumption.

 “Winning an international award on just his third batch in his personal brewery is a phenomenal achievement. Santiago’s pilsner proves that you don’t need to invest millions to make the world’s best beer. Anyone can create world-class, commercial quality beer from their home or workplace, which is potentially the greatest innovation in the global beer industry of the last 30 years,” he said.

 The award-winning pilsner was made with WilliamsWarn pre-packaged ingredients with some extra soaked and strained malt and hops, and was judged by a panel of professional brew masters and beer tasters in Singapore.

According to Williams, more than a third of New Zealand males have tried home-brewing but most have not carried on with it because of the time involved and the low-quality beer produced. He says the WilliamsWarn personal brewery solves 12 of the key problems faced by home brewers, such as the carbonation process, temperature control and clarification, to make beer brewing simple and fast. “The machine’s innovative design and patented process ensures minimal oxidation, making beer produced in the WilliamsWarn the freshest beer in

the world.”

 The invention, supported by the Ministry of Science and Innovation, was launched in Auckland a year ago and sold out of the initial 70 units. Williams says the company was overwhelmed with offers of distribution from around the world at the time of launch and has since been able to attract further investment.