World’s top younger brewer named

The Institute of Brewing & Distilling (IBD) has announced that James Van der Watt has won its award for the 2011 “Younger Member of the Year”.

James, 34, is currently SABMiller’s Brewing Research Consultant with responsibility for commissioning their new GBP 3 million brewing research facility at the University of Nottingham in the UK. He was born in South Africa and attained a BSc in Microbiology and Zoology from the University of Cape Town before joining South African Breweries in 1999. He is a qualified IBD Master Brewer and was the youngest ever Chairman of the African Section of the Institute of Brewing and Distilling.

Also highly commended by the judging panel were Andrew Madden from Lion Nathan in New Zealand, Wade MacCann from SAB Miller in South Africa and Daniel MacKinnon, an independent distiller from Canada.