The following year saw the purchase of Unit 20 at Downton, which facilitated additional storage space, desperately needed for bottle-conditioned products. The bottle-conditioned range was expanded when Taiphoon was bottled and marketed to off-licences and supermarket chains. In August, Summer Lighting was awarded a Bronze in the Strong Beer Category at GBBF in Olympia ; this was the eleventh consecutive year in which Summer Lightning had been nominated at this event.
With the arrival of the new millennium came Hop Back’s seventh pub, The Coronation in Bristol.
Meanwhile, Winter Lightning won its first award at the Salisbury Winterfest. In the spring of 2000, bottle-conditioned Crop Circle won the Tesco Spring Challenge; this meant that Crop Circle appeared nationally in all Tesco stores for 36 weeks. In August, Summer Lightning was awarded a Bronze in the Strong Bitters Category at GBBF, Olympia.
The installation of a new, larger capacity bottling line, together with a new copper and fermenter, to accommodate increasing demand for Hop Back bottle-conditioned and cask-conditioned products, was key development in 2001.
In June, Hop Back commenced the supply of cask-conditioned Summer Lightning to J D Wetherspoon on a nationwide basis, while the beer itself continued to win accolades, with Beer of the Festival at Plymouth Beerex, Overall Champion at Salisbury Beerex, Best Strong Beer by SIBA and one Gold and two Silver awards at GBBF.
