The Brewers Exhibition contest wasn't like that. The oldest beer competition in the world, it was fiercely contested. And still is. Getting five firsts when there would have been hundreds of entries really is an achievement.
They are a bit coy about which beers won medals. I know that Newcastle Brown Ale did. Not so sure about the Mild Ale."Note the New Label
When you order a rich dark mild, look for this label. It appears on all bottles of Newcastle Ales, and is at once a sign of good brewing and a record of the sweeping success of these Northern brewed beers at the Brewers Exhibition of 1928. See the seven awards (including five “firsts”) shown on the upper part of the label. Then taste the beer itself and enjoy the smoothness and richness that can only come from extreme care and experience in brewing. Try a bottle for supper to-night.
6.5d Imp. Pint
Imperial Pints - 6/6 dozen.
Imperial Halves 3/9 dozen.
Reputed Pints - 5/6 dozen."
Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail - Thursday 28 February 1929, page 7.
I'm quite surprised to see them still using reputed points at this late a date. After WW II, pretty much everything was in imperial halves, pints of quarts. A reputed pint was about two-thirds of a pint.
Looking at the illustration, it seems that the bottles were sealed with screw tops of the internal thread type. Not crown corks. A little bit old-fashioned, but OI remember some Whitbread beer still being packaged in that type of bottle when I lived in Leeds in the 1970s.
I get the sense that the brewing world in general has come down from a fixation on awards that was a lot stronger 10-15 years ago, both for commercial and home brewers. I don't know if that's true, though. But it seems to go hand in hand with a general relaxation of a lot of artificial rules and expectations.
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