A Staffordshire brewery is celebrating after picking up a brace of awards inside 48 hours.

Lymestone Brewery took the accolades at the prestigious Taste of Staffordshire Awards, carrying off the Brewery of the Year prize and followed that with the Barry Underwood Award at the CAMRA Stoke Beer Festival for services to real ale, brewing and pubs.

“We had an incredible weekend,”

said Viv Bradford, a Director at the Stone-based brewery.

“Taste of Staffordshire is a wonderful organisation which promotes excellence across food and drink producers and retailers throughout our county and we are proud members.

The award was particularly pleasing as it involves mystery shoppers. We take pride in striving to make sure every customer gets excellence service and quality products and it is good to see we came out on top in independent tests. Staffordshire is renowned for its brewing prowess and to be crowned Brewery of the Year is a wonderful reward for our team at the brewery and pubs.

We are also delighted to receive the Barry Underwood Award. CAMRA members are incredibly knowledgeable and receiving their support is a mark of high quality. Barry Underwood was a leading light in the early days of CAMRA in North Staffordshire and it was an honour for us to pick up the award from his daughter, Simone.”

Lymestone was founded nine years ago by Ian and Viv Bradford. The brewery, based at Mount Road, Stone, employs six people at the brewery and has three pubs, the Lymestone Vaults, Newcastle-under-Lyme, the Borehole, a stone’s throw away from the brewery in Mount Road, Stone, and the Quiet Woman, Leek, which was opened by Lymestone earlier this year.

The Lymestone Vaults was also recognised by CAMRA at the Stoke Beer Festival, held at Fenton Manor, Stoke-on-Trent.

“We are a true family business as our daughter, Sarah, has now joined us as a brewer working alongside her dad,”

added Viv.

”Along with our own pubs, we supply many pubs around the area and large chains such as JD Wetherspoon.”

There is more information about the brewery, based on the Mount Industrial Estate in Mount Road, Stone, and its range of award-winning ales at www.lymestonebrewery.co.uk