A SALTAIRE micro-brewery is celebrating after being named the brewery of the year in an international competition.

Salt Beer Factory, based in Bingley Road, beat off stiff competition from across Europe and Canada to claim the brewery of the year prize at the London Beer Competition.

The site also picked up another string of prizes in the awards. These were first place gold medals in Ikat DDH DIPA - Best UK Beer; Ikat DDH DIPA - Strong American ale category; Alpaca DDH IPA - IPA category and Citra NEIPA JNR - in the Pale American ale category

Salt also secured a second place silver medal for its Calico - GF beer category. Apart from Citra, the other medal-winning beers tap into the village's textiles heritage, such as Alpacas and Ikat, which is a weaving technique.

The award's judging panel was made up of beer sommeliers, journalists, bar owners and brewers.

Salt's 20-hectolitre plant, complete with a modern taproom, is in the Grade II-listed former Edwardian tramshed in Saltaire.

In line with the latest relaxation of lockdown restrictions, the site re-opened to outdoor drinking only last Monday. For this, it has added to the beer garden at the front of the brewery with extra space for customers in its car park.

It is hoped Salts's indoor bar and dining area and its taproom will reopen to the public on May 17, when the next stage of the roadmap is scheduled to take place.

Nadir Zairi, Salt Beer Factory managing director, says the award win gave them a timely boost.

He said: "It's great news for us and it came on Monday, the same day we re-opened.

"It was good to come in that day as it gave us a really good feeling around the brewery.

Bradford Telegraph and Argus:

"This last year has been a huge challenge for us and the industry.

It's an international award and it has absolutely blown us away that we've won it

The site has also used its enforced closure over the last few months to make a few changes.

It has made a 150 per cent increase in the capacity for its taproom and work has also taken place in the upstairs dining area.

During lockdown, Salt Beer Factory brought in a home delivery service people could take their pick from some of its range.

Mr Zairi added: "It was good to see the local following that we had when we started doing deliveries.

"We also used the time when we were closed initially to set up an e-commerce side of the business.

"We have brewed 80 different beers over the last two-and-a-half years since we opened."

Ahead of the site's first weekend of trading after lockdown was eased, he added the first week back has good.

He said: "Trade has been really good. It has shown that people have been itching to get back to the pub. The weather has helped, that it has been dry, sunny but chilly.

"We are looking forward to a pretty strong weekend as well., but it is obviously a fraction of what it would be as we can't open the inside yet."

Meanwhile, Salt Beer Factory has teamed up with Norwegian brewery, Lervig Beer, on Peanøtt Smøres Fluffernutter Stout.

The drink includes peanut butter and marshmallows fused together to form Fluffernutter.

The £1.7 million micro-brewery opened up in October 2018.

These are the micro brewery's latest 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’.