With more variety and improved quality in recent years, beer brewing is experiencing a golden era in New Zealand.

Five Bay of Plenty breweries have submitted their finest brews for judging and will learn their fates at the 2015 Brewers Guild of New Zealand Awards taking place in Wellington on Saturday.

The BOP brewers vying to be crowned champion are: Aotearoa Breweries, Croucher Brewing Company, Fitzpatrick Brewing, Mount Brewing Company and Rocky Knob Brewing.

The prestigious awards are now into their ninth year and in 2015, some 800 beers have been entered across 14 categories.

'Our breweries are becoming renowned for being the world's overachievers in beer brewing,” says Brewers Guild chairman Bob King. 'New Zealand is in the midst of a golden period for brewing in terms of the variety and quality of beers produced.

'These awards are the ultimate accolade for the $2.2 billion beer industry. They reward and celebrate those who are especially talented at brewing quality beer that people throughout New Zealand and the world enjoy.”

Last week, a panel of 25 national and internationally qualified judges have had the difficult task of tasting each of the 800 entries, rating them against a style guide for each category for aroma, colour, bitterness, flavour and presentation.

A beer's overall balance of characteristics, with all those factors taken into account, is then rated and judges decide whether it is worthy of a gold, silver or bronze medal.

The winners will be announced on Saturday and the brewery with the most number of medals is crowned Champion New Zealand Brewery, and Champion International Brewery.

FITZPATRICK BREWING COMPANY – Tauranga

Entries: Kaffa Lime and Coriander Witbier, Imperial Porter, Indian Pale Ale, and Pale Ale.

Fitzpatrick's Brewing Co Limited is a 5ha family owned brewery which became licensed in September 2012.

It's owned and operated by head brewer and 'chief bottle washer” Craig Fitzpatrick alongside his wife Catherine, and their sons who also help run and maintain the business.

The brewery has been a long time in the making, stemming from Craig's long passion for beer and many years of home brewing.

'We're feeling good about our entries,” says Craig, 'and we're definitely hoping for some great feedback on our beers.

'In saying that, there's award-type feedback and customer feedback. Awards mean a lot in terms of you brewing beer without faults, but it doesn't necessarily mean that its beer that customers love. And that's what we really want to do, make beers that our customers love.”

THE CROUCHER BREWING COMPANY – Tauranga and Rotorua

Entries: New Zealand Pilsner, Pale Ale, Lowrider IPA, Patriot and Anzus IPA.

Established by Paul Croucher and Nigel Gregory, both admit they shared a mid-life-crisis, leaving well-paid academic and corporate careers, with a dream of making beer.

The dream started with Paul producing an award winning home-brew, which encouraged him and business partner Nigel to forge ahead with their dream and start a commercial brewery in 2004.

Since then there's been numerous success, including winning the NZ Brewers Guild Awards International Lager category in 2010, and picking up medals at the 2014 Australian International Beer Awards.

'We're feeling pretty optimistic,” says director and head brewer Paul Croucher, 'the beers are all in great nick, they're really fresh and we've had plenty of time to refine them.

'A lot of Kiwis think of beer being as that brown watery stuff we'd drink out of dad's can when growing up, but there's so more to it than that. Once you discover how many flavours there are to beer, it's simply amazing.”

MOUNT BREWING COMPANY – Mount Maunganui

Entries: Mermaids Mirth, Shaggy Ale, India Dark Ale, Blow Hole Ale, Mount Manuka Hussy, Resin Head and 50 Fathom Oat Stout.

The brewers behind Mount Brewing Company, Steve Edkins and Janine Pharo, are Bay of Plenty locals who started out as keen home brewers.

Started in 1996 as ‘Brewers', a brew-on premise, where people came to make their own beer, using specialty equipment imported from Canada.

It started making its own beer after modifying its equipment eight years ago into a micro-brewery, and in August of this year expanded again, doubling its capacity from 500 litres to 1,000 litres.

Head brewer Steve Edkins says he's looking forward to learning the results of the awards, and while medals are great, it's about more than that.

'For me as a brewer it's about getting good, honest feedback from the judges and if you get recognised by the judges tasting your beer that's a bonus,” he says.

'It gives us an honest opinion on the style and lets you know you're on the right track. You're just trying to make your beers as perfect as possible every time you brew them.”

ROCKY KNOB – Mount Maunganui

Entries: Snapperhead, Hop Knob, Oceanside, Home Again, Black Booty.

One of the Bay's newest breweries, this small brewery has been owned and operated by husband and wife team Stu and Bron Marshall for the past two years.

Their philosophy is to create full-flavoured beers for like-minded people and their Snapperhead is one of their most popular drops, so much so beer writer Neil Miller judged it his Beer of the Year in 2014.

'It's a bit of an expensive hobby, I still work a fulltime job which keeps me pretty busy, but I just love what I do,” says head brewer Stu.

'These awards are great for the recognition of having a good product, and then having your peers and international judges judge your beer to style.”

AOTEAROA BREWRIES – Kawerau

Entries: Chino, Dark Knight, Caribbean Queen, Hip Hop, BOP, Mata Whaka, Manuka, Sahti, Wai-iti Waka, Kapai Autumn, Volcano, Tumeke, Blondie, Mata & Fat Monk

Aotearoa Breweries are a family run business and the operation behind the award winning MATA beers.

At the help is managing director and head brewer Tammy Viitakangas, who leads a team that includes her mother, father and Uncle Esko.

Tammy says they've entered the awards exactly 10 times so far – she knows this because the brewery is celebrating its tenth birthday this year.

'We are the happiest we've ever been with our entries this year, but you never know with judging until the results come out,” she says. 'The standards the judges are looking for goes up every year, so you have to get better every year

'We're hoping for some good medals amongst it, but you never know. We'll either be crying or laughing tomorrow,” she says laughing. 'Hopefully if we are crying then they're tears of joy.