Tim and Tess Thomas from Hop Dog Brewery entered their first sour beer, named Brett the Bloody Orange, in the Great Australasian Beer SpecTapula last week.

The Nowra beer was voted into the top ten People’s Choice Award over 110 different beers from around the world.

The couple was happy with their achievement.

“For us to come in the top ten and being one of the smallest breweries in the country is great. It’s boasting rights,” Mr Thomas said.

“It was also a big thing because we entered bacteria-ridden sour beer and none of the others were sour beers.

“It’s a barrel-fermented wild ale with blood oranges and ruby-red grapefruit.

“But we inoculated it with a yeast called brettanomyces [referred to as Brett, hence the beer’s name] which is a souring organism, which you normally throw out in beer.

“It’s the sort of thing that if it gets into wine, winemakers will set fire to their winery.

“Using it is a bit risky. If you don’t clean everything down properly post-usage it can spread.

“The first check-in on Untapped, which is like Facebook for beer lovers, said this beer should have been called Sarah Jessica Parker because it is sour and horsey. 

“We’ve done two beers with Brett and we are loving it.”

Four kegs of the beer were taken to Melbourne for the SpecTapular, one is at the Taphouse in Darlinghurst Sydney and the other is at Bottlerocket in Nowra.