The 'Golden Pint' Awards 2012

It's that 'reflective' time of year again. Organised by Mark Dredge and Andy over at Beer Reviews, have a look at Mark's site if you want to know what it's all about but it should all be pretty self-explanatory!

1. Best UK Draught Beer: Thornbridge 'Kipling.'
2. Best UK Bottled or Canned Beer: Hardknott 'Queboid.' A close call with several others, but I picked this and the Brasserie d'Achouffe for number four because they switched me on to a style I've not really been a massive fan of before.
3. Best Overseas Draught Beer: Duchesse de Bourgogne. Although I only had a bit of a taste, its balsamic loveliness really sticks in the mind.
4. Best Overseas Bottled or Canned Beer: Brasserie d’Achouffe 'Houblon Chouffe' 
5. Best Overall Beer:  I think it has to be the Brasserie d’Achouffe 'Houblon Chouffe' - I absolutely loved it!
6. Best Pumpclip or Label: I might be biased because the beer's so good (it was a contender for number 2) but I love the elegance of Harviestoun's 'Ola Dubh' Highland Park aged range.
7. Best UK Brewery: Williams Brothers, because I can't remember having a beer from them that I haven't enjoyed - they're experimental but don't compromise consistency.
8. Best Overseas Brewery: Although here aren't many I've had more than one beer from Nils Oscar's beers seem to be consistently good.
9. Pub/Bar of the Year: The Kean's Head in Nottingham. Yes, I'm biased because it's the pub company I used to work for and it's run by a friend of mine, but even on Friday and Saturday nights in town it's a nice little oasis of calm amid the madness.
10. Beer Festival of the Year: The Sheffield Tap. Well, it's the closest I got to a beer festival (for shame) but life's hectic. Although I didn't get there, and so I'm judging by amazing sounding write-ups, the Indy-Man Beer-Convention is the one I'd most like to get to in 2013, finances permitting.
11. Supermarket of the Year: I might plead the fifth on this one. Nobody really deserves any recommendation. Nottingham's Waitrose rarely has anything they advertise as a chain, and their 'deals' are perplexing at best. I've left beers at the counter too often when it turns out 'it's not those, it's the ones next to them that are on offer.' Sainsbury's Great British Beer Hunt was a lame effort this year, mostly average beers which they hardly bothered to promote. The only positive thing about supermarkets for me is the bakery they've opened at the Lidl near me. Go independent!
12. Independent Retailer of the Year: Hops in a Bottle in Mansfield; friendly, and clearly run by beer fans for beer fans.
13. On-line Retailer of the Year: Beer Ritz. A considered selection rather than trying to stock everything for everything's sake. Easily navigable website and speedy service. 
14. Best Beer Book or Magazine: Michael Jackson's Beer Companion. Why would you need anything else?
15. Best Beer Blog or Website: Boak and Bailey. Informative and entertaining!
16. Best Beer Twitterer: Simon H Johnson. Same as last year, same reasons as last year, and this year I got to meet the man beneath the merkin!
17. Best On-line Brewery presence: Durham Brewery, in the form of Elly Bell, although Broughton deserve a mention for sending me beer when I win their Tuesday Trivia Twitter quiz - I'm entirely open to bribery!
18. Food and Beer Pairing of the Year: Williams' 'Cock O' the Walk' as part of a Burns' Supper, even if the whisky sauce was the star!
19. In 2013 I'd most like to: Get to a CAMRGB Twissup and meet some of the guys I chat to on Twitter!
20. Open Category: BrewDog. Some superb beers, although there is the occasional slip-up! and they opened a bar in Nottingham. Kudos.

Cheers, all the best beverages for 2013.

Thornbridge 'Saint Petersburg' Imperial Stout

I couldn't let this one go past without singing its praises. What a winter beer, and not the tacky tinsel variety, there are no badly scrawled doodles of Father Christmas in a compromising situation with a reindeer, it's just the sort of beer that makes you feel cocooned away, protected from all that cold November darkness. Magnificent. Probably to the point where it'd make you feel great in the height of summer too.

On the nose there's lots of chocolate maltiness, with a hint of dried and dark fruits lurking behind; raisins ans plums. It's almost like a savoury version of a fruit and nut bar. Full body hardly does it justice, it's almost chewy. There's more dark chocolate on the palate and on the finish it's all rounded off beautifully with cleansing bitter coffee.

Cosier than a 15 tog duvet. Embrace the dark...



7.4% abv. £3.10 (50cl) from Hops in a Bottle.

Thornbridge 'Wild Swan'

So there's me getting myself ready for winter; I have seductive visions of viscous imperial stouts and single malts that have the bonfire reek my clothes used to pick up from helping my grandad with fires in his back garden when I was little. Then what happens? Well, the small Waitrose in Nottingham starts to stock, and discount, Thornbridge Jaipur and White Swan - the latter being one I don't remember having tried previously. This served as a timely reminder that there are no rules; good beer can be enjoyed at any time of year, and, well, it had to be done really - so here's to the summer?

It pours very pale. It's described on the bottle as a 'white-gold pale ale' which I'm not about to argue with. The head was fluffy, light and long-lasting. On the nose it's all grassy hops. There's none of the tropical fruit you get in Jaipur or Punk. Using a wine analogy it's a lot more like a Sancerre to Jaipur's Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc; it has a mineral, flinty edge while retaining the clean citrus fruit from the hops. Once past the initial hop-hit the malt comes through with crystal clarity, it took me right back to getting my nose into a handful at the brewery in the summer.

This was a beer I expected I'd be indifferent about but it really does pack an immense amount of flavour into a low-ish alcohol beer. It's well worth picking up if you want something you can enjoy without getting your head into a fog that's perhaps more appropriate for a weekend!

3.5% abv. £2.09 for 50cl in Waitrose. It's also on a four for three deal at the moment.

A Year in Beer

It's been roughly a year since I started blogging about beer. Although this Blogger blog only really got going after the Robin Hood Beer Festival in October, I had written some pieces before, some of which I transferred over when I recently found copies. If you'll indulge me just a little recap here are, in alphabetical order rather than one of favouritism (making it much easier for me to decide), my favourite five bottled beers I have reviewed in the 140 or so posts I've written on this blog in the last year:

Brasserie d’Achouffe 'Houblon Chouffe'
Bristol Beer Factory 'Southville Hop'
Hardknott 'Queboid'
Harviestoun 'Ola Dubh' 12
Thornbridge 'Raven'

And so a conclusion can be drawn - I'm still a big IPA fan all these years after my conversion in the first pub I was ever assistant manger of, years after Youngers IPA has gone the way of all things. There is the caveat however, and that's that big hoppy IPAs (and big imperial stouts) are liable to stand out clearly in the memory. Witness how many times new world wines 'are better than classed growth chateaux' in whatever latest wine challenge.

The most read article I've written was this one questioning BrewDog's policies about topping up in a couple of their new bars. This is mainly because of this post on their forum, which I can't read because I'm not a shareholder - so I still have no idea what it's about. Oddly, the most searched for term that has brought the most people to my blog is 'Peter Griffin no bones.'

So what's the other lesson? Well, if traffic is important to you, and you'd like to boost your Wikio ranking, whatever that is, then the wisdom I can share from my first year of blogging is: Say something controversial about BrewDog, preferably involving Peter Griffin. Sweet.

I'm kidding, don't send hate mail (again).

On a more serious note I'd like to say thank you to everyone that does read this blog, everyone who chats to me on Twitter and keeps my beer and blogging enthusiasm going, and in particular to B&B, Zak, and Steve, owners of the blogs that people read before stumbling blindly into this one.

Cheers all!

Thornbridge Brewery Tour

A few of us went for a tour of the Thornbridge brewery yesterday, along with  a stop at the Monsal Head Hotel, or at least the Stable Bar bit, somewhere I first visited for a bit of refuelling on my way to my stag/beer and walking weekend in the Hope Valley. If you've never been up there then you're missing out. You might be be prepared to accept indifferent beer because of the view, but you don't have to, the Buxton Moor Top was amazing; session beer for hop-heads, with a great supporting cast courtesy of the Wincle brewery. Frankly, even if the pub was horrible it'd probably still get a good review from me by virtue of a couple of Michael Jackson books being scattered around as reading matter.

I won't go into details of how the beer is brewed - there are people far better qualified than me talking about brewing on many a blog, so I'll just put a few photos below so those of you who want to have a bit of a look at the shiny stuff can do so. It's certainly an impressive site, wearing its modernity and its craft beer credentials with all the pride, if not all of the volume, of one of its ex-employees.

As for the beer, well we got to try the Lord Marple there and then, and all of their regular lines are available bottled form the brewery shop. I also bagged myself a few Thornbridge Hall beers, which is the brand they are labelling their experimental brews under - reviews of those to follow anon. They're brewed at the older, original brewery site. After finishing the tour we headed over to the Sheffield Tap to make sure we got the whole Thornbridge experience - we're nothing if not dedicated - Jaipur and the superlative Kipling on hand-pull rounding off the afternoon's tasting experience nicely.

Thanks very much to Thornbridge for a fun and informative tour and some excellent beer - I'm looking forward to the Thornbridge Hall beers and a return trip to the Tap. Cheers!

More Michael. Style!

Tasty bits.

Shiny stuff! (Mash tun)

Mmmmm, hops...

Brew lab.

Sam. Getting thirsty.

More shiny things.

Bottling line, for about 30% of the beer.

More tasty bits!

More shiny stuff. They've got something like 300 awards!

Some fizzy keg rubbish...

...we found hiding in the cold store.

Thornbridge 'Raven' Black IPA

Every now and again a beer leaves you reaching for Roget and looking for more superlatives to throw at it. At times like these I generally feel like a review can never quite do it justice. I'm sure I'm not the first person to be blown away by how great Thornbridge's Raven is. Simon over at CAMRGB seemed pretty keen and if you didn't check his review out, you should.

I got lots of berry fruit and dark cherry on the nose, along with hints of chocolate and orange. Bags of rich fruit on the palate; cherry again and some dried fruit balancing well with the coffee and roasted malt flavours. The slightly grainy texture sets it up well too. A genuinely intriguing beer, big enough without being excessive. The bitterness of the finish seemed to move around to the mid-palate and almost dance with the lemon and orange hoppy fruit. Highly recommended.

6.6% abv £3.05 (50cl) from Hops in a Bottle.