A small business in Maple Creek recently achieved four awards at the Prairie Beer Awards last week in Winnipeg.

Rafter R Brewing Company received silver for both their Oktoberfest and Red Ale, and bronze for Winterspice and Rauchbier on Friday, May 31.

Ryan Moncrieff, owner and brewer at Rafter R Brewing Company, was overjoyed to receive such significant recognition once again, although he himself wasn't able to attend the awards ceremony.

"It's always nice to pick up a medal for a beer or an award for beer," he said. "It's a good pat on the back for all the long hours and hard work."

This was the second year the brewery received silver for Oktoberfest under the German beer category.

The local brewery, run by Moncrieff and his wife, is open weekdays and long weekends and serves everything from ciders to craft beer, wine and non-alcoholic beer.

"The competitions are really well run, they get really good judges to come in," Moncrieff shared. "The feedback that we get through the scorecards and stuff like that is really important, it tells us a lot of things about the quality of the beer in general.

"You get the opportunity to get recognized with an award but at the same time you get that valuable feedback on all sorts of aspects of that beer and there's lots of great beers that are entered."

He noted that multiple Saskatchewan breweries entered into the competition and represented the province and the industry well.

Anyone interested in more information about Rafter R Brewing Company can visit them in Maple Creek, on Facebook, or check out their website.