Cisk Lager, brewed and bottled by Simonds Farsons Cisk plc since 1928, has been named the World's Best Standard Lager by Beers of the World, an international consumer beer magazine.

The recently-launched Cisk Excel won the World's Best Low Carb Beer title in the same awards.

The World Beer Awards, held for the first time this year, are organised by Paragraph Publishing, publishers of Europe's leading beer and whisky magazines.

An international panel of judges tasted their way through hundreds of entries from the United Kingdom, Europe, the United States, Australia and beyond, to find the winners of each style. These style winners then went head to head at a blind tasting event, where the UK's top brewers selected the best beers in each category.

"This global recognition of the quality of our products is very good news to us," Farsons Group chief executive Louis A Farrugia said. "It confirms that our commitment to give our customers an excellent beer is giving us the results we are after and encourages us to keep improving on that."

Roger Protz, chairman of judging panel, acknowledged that the judges were overwhelmed by the quality of the beers entered for the competition, adding that "it has been an immensely difficult task choosing the winners".

Cisk Lager has won several awards over the past years. Among the most significant, Cisk Lager won the UK's Brewex Competition in 1980 when it was awarded gold medals in both the Lager and the Best Overall categories.

In 1995, Cisk Lager received the top prize in the Australian International Beer Awards, while its sister brand Cisk Export won the Gold Medal at the World Beer Cup in Ohio, USA in 2002.

Cisk Lager placed second in the International Lager Competition category, Class 1, of The Brewing Industry International Awards 2005.