King Road Brewing wins top beer honors, Western Australia shines at awards

King Road Brewing Co’s pale ale rose to the top of a 482-entry field to win Champion Beer at the 2026 Perth Royal Food Awards, a result that put Western Australia’s brewing scene front and center while a plainspoken, 5.2% pale ale beat louder styles on the judges’ table.

The win also gave the Oldbury brewery a clean sweep in packaged beer classes, with King Road taking Best Pale Ale Packaged and Best IPA Packaged. The competition, run by the Royal Agricultural Society of Western Australia and established in 2007, is judged blind, with entries assessed on appearance, aroma, flavour, balance, style and technical quality. That framework matters: when the labels disappear, a beer has to stand up on structure, freshness and finish, not branding or buzz.

Chief judge Dan Feist said the standard was exceptionally strong across both traditional and experimental styles, a sign that Australia’s beer bench is deep beyond the headline-grabbing releases. King Road’s result fits that picture neatly. Its KR Pale Ale is an American-style pale ale brewed with Amarillo and Citra hops, a combination that leans into bright hop character without letting the beer drift out of balance. In a category crowded with IPAs, fruit-driven releases and barrel-ageing theatrics, a polished pale ale can still win when every part of the beer is pulling in the same direction.

Steve Wearing, King Road’s head brewer, called the result “an incredible result” and described the beer as “a quiet achiever” with “no hype, just a solid beer,” crediting the whole team. That is the kind of line brewers tend to use when a beer has earned its reputation the hard way, through repetition, consistency and a clean finish that judges can keep coming back to.

King Road’s backstory adds another layer to the victory. Bev and Dave McKee started the business in 2008 with cider experiments on the family farm, using a cheap home-style setup before expanding into a brewery and venue on 90 acres of rural property near Perth. What began as a family project on farmland now stands as one of the state’s strongest beer operations, and the awards backed that up across the board.

Western Australia had a strong showing beyond King Road. Rocky Ridge Brewing Company won Champion Large Brewery, Campus Brewing took Champion Medium Brewery and Lucky Bay Brewing won Champion Small Brewery. The awards also reflected changing drinking habits, with a new alcohol-free beer category introduced for 2026 and Boston Brewing Company winning it for Little Wren, a non-alcoholic raspberry sour. For pale ale drinkers, though, King Road’s win was the reminder that the style still has plenty of room to impress when the hops are clean, the body is tight and the balance is exact.