LUDLOW Brewery scooped two awards at the Society of Independent Brewers West and Wales beer festival.

One of the craft brewery’s lower-strength ales Blonde was awarded gold in the hotly contested Cask Best Bitters & Pale Ales category, earning its place in the national finals.

Ludlow Brewery picked up silver in the Strong Ale category for Stairway, the highest-strength beer brewed at the converted railway shed in Ludlow.

The competition took place during the Ludlow Spring Food festival when the judges had a huge range of beers from across the region in a number of styles.

“To receive gold and silver reflects a continuation of our high standards,” said Gary Walters, founder of Ludlow Brewery. "We are guided by a core principle of quality above all."

As a gold winner of the awards, the Blonde ale is automatically entered into the National Independent Beer Awards 2018, which will take place at SIBA Beer X in March 2018.

Gary and his wife Alison Walters launched Ludlow Brewing Company in May 2006, rekindling an industry which had been dormant in Ludlow since the last brewery in town, the Ludlow and Craven Arms Brewery shut up shop in the 1930s.

In March 2009, the company had outgrown the old malting building in Corve Street and began the renovation of an abandoned railway shed on the same site, installing a new 20 barrel brewing system.

Stairway to Paradise was first brewed in September 2010 winning silver in the SIBA competition category for strong bitters in 2011. The newest pale ale Blonde was brewed in the new brewery at the end of 2014.