The Spyke Golding Challenge Winner Announced at Hucknall Beer Festival 2025
The Spyke Golding Challenge Winner Announced at Hucknall Beer Festival 2025
The list of the brewers for the entries to the competition were confirmed as – 
Voting closed on Saturday 15th during the lunchtime session and the following was announced by Nottingham CAMRA –
“We can now announce the results of the 2025 “Spyke Golding Challenge Shield”
The winner was Blue Monkey Brewery with “Choca Mocha Stout”. [Beer H]
Huge congratulations to the Blue Monkey Team.
The three breweries that are to be Highly Commended are:(in alphabetical order)
– Lenton Lane Brewing Company with Adventure Beer Company with “”Guinevere” [Beer F]
– Milestone Brewery with “Chocolate Stout” [Beer K]
– Two Matt’s Brewing Co with “Krushin It” [Beer I]
A huge thank you to all those who judged and voted, and we really hoped you enjoyed taking part and to all of the brewery teams involved this year.
We look forward to seeing you all again in 2026
The annual Hucknall Beer & Cider Festival took place between Thursday 13th and Sunday 16th February. The Festival is held at the John Godber Centre, a community venue at the heart of Hucknall, owned by The St Mary Magdalene Church and governed by the Church Council. The Hucknall Beer Festival is a charity fundraiser for the John Godber Centre which is a registered charity.
The 2025 festival hosted the Spyke Golding Challenge which involved twelve Nottinghamshire breweries submitting new and original beers which would be judged by the paying public. To make it a fair and open competition, only the tasting notes for the beers were provided with the brewery and beer names being revealed on Saturday – after the judging had been completed.
Judges were asked to score out of 10 how close the beer matched the tasting notes and also a score based on: ‘Would they buy the beer in a pub?’. After extensive judging over two days the winner of the competition was:
Blue Monkey Brewery with their entry – ‘Choca Mocha Stout’
Mocha Stout with a complex malt character backbone of speciality malts delivering a chocolate and biscuity base, this has lent itself to be conditioning on fresh Guatemala roasted coffee. Ground moments before addition, this has brought subtle notes of Cocoa, Blueberry, Hibiscus and Vanilla.
The organisers wish to thank Aither Brewery, Beer Mats; Castle Rock; Hollowstone; Jacaranda; Lincoln Green; Milestone; and Nottingham; breweries for also submitting beers for the competition. All of the beers were well received and all sold out.
Keep up to date with Hucknall Beer and Cider Festival news on these official links to the website, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages.