Golden Pints 2014

I'm sitting in on day 2 of January 2015, it's Friday night, I've got the cat lying contentedly next to me and I've just cracked open Buxton's 'Come Again' sour pale to drink. After spending New Year's eve at the Picture House Social on Abbeydale Road and enjoying De Molen and Alesmith beers before and after 'the countdown', I realised how good and more widely available the choice is - in styles and breweries (from the UK and across the globe). Regardless of whether people think we've hit saturation point, as a beer lover, I feel utterly happy with the variety I have to choose from. I'm not in a hurry to try it all, I'm happy to take it at a steady pace, listen to friends recommendations - whether in person or via social media (and the blogosphere) and savour the experience along the way. 

I hope it continues into 2015! 

With this in mind it's always good to reflect on the year that was and pull out a few highlights - so here you go.....my Golden pints:  


Best UK Draught (Cask or Keg) Beer: 

You might start to notice throughout this post a number of 'best ofs' will come from my weekend in Copenhagen at the Beer Celebration (CBC) over there (hosted by Mikkeller). To be honest I absolutely loved it; the city, the people, the food (mmmm pastries) and the beer. The event itself had so many breweries I'd been wanting to try beers from for ages, but just couldn't source in the UK - like Surly. 

Plus someone came up to me and started chatting as I was carrying a Record Collector bag (a Sheffield record shop institution) and it instantly made me feel at ease. I also met a couple from Manchester in the queue outside who were really sound and all round a load of nice people! Maybe it's the fact we all shared a love of beer, who knows. I also spent the next 4 hours from 10am drinking beer. I may post the evidence of that at some point and I definitely found a Danish extra from Caddyshack!

A moment which came to mind for this best draught was sampling The Kernel's London Sour Raspberry whilst having a chat to founder Evin. This tart, lovely and intense Berliner Weisse kicked off a full year of sour beers. Which I've fallen in love with, thanks Evin for reminding me about the good stuff!

props to the photographer from Untappd!

A bit of a runner up would go to Wild beer Co's Sourbeast tasted on keg at Thornbridge's Great Peak Weekender. A funky Wildebeast with sour berries and dark roasted notes. 

Wild Beer Co tasting in a big top tent at Great Peak Weekender

Best UK Bottled or Canned Beer: 

They can do no wrong at the moment so for the best bottle it goes to Buxton for both of these beauties - New world Saison and Far Skyline. One's a saison with a whole load of dry-hopping going on in the form of Galaxy and Cascade, the other their take on a Berliner Weisse (erm and more dry-hopping!). Both were utterly delicious and beers I've ended up drinking all year. I even managed to have a half at The Bath Hotel on my annual Christmas pub crawl, which made my bloody night!

It's the middle one....the other two were pretty tasty too

Best Overseas Draught Beer:

One of the first beers I had at CBC was the Green Flash and Cigar City collaboration Candela Rye Barleywine. Partly as they were pretty much the first table (I don't travel far) as this plus 10%er isn't a usual starting beer! 

The richness and waves of flavours blew me away. It's the first barleywine I've honestly enjoyed for a long time. Chuck Silva and Wayne Wambles are geezers, they really seem to know how to get body and layers of flavour into beers. 

(Rye seems to have been a bit of a favourite of mine in 2014 inc Green Flash's Road Warrior and Siren's Ryesing Tides). 

Best Overseas Bottled or Canned Beer:
I've been really excited by Dutch breweries all last year and one standout beer was a black rye IPA from Kaapse Brouwers (Bea). Starting life brewing on De Molen's kit these friends then spread their wings. I've been visiting Holland since 1996 and fell in love with the country - there's a real symbiosis with the UK for me and a shared love for beer, cheese and darts.......and windmills. 

This Swiss brewery caught my eye: Storm & Anchor with their hoppy IPA In a Galaxy far, far away and I hugely enjoyed the Schneider-Weisse/Brooklyn collaboration - Hopfenweisse (more hoppy IPA v wheat beers please). 
Another memorable bottle was Cascade Brewing's (sampled in Dublin at EBBC) their apricot sour - tart sourness with a hint of sweet delicate apricot. 

Best Pumpclip or Label:

Buxton / Evil twin collaboartion - Come Again. With the twisty detailed disembodied arms double dropping the pints. Come again?

Tyne Bank's Peloton Pale I loved for the simplicity and colour combinations, commemorating this well loved cycling event that toured Yorkshire (a once in my lifetime moment). A nod to Kraftwerk's Tour de France surely...

Best UK Brewery:

Erm.....well it's got to be Buxton for the beer after beer this year that I've loved. The collaborations have been hefty too from their Evil Twin sour pale ale to Arizonna Wilderness with a bacon, maple and chipotle stout to To Ol IPAs. 
I also spent the day at their tap house drinking Ace Edge commiserating the fact I didn't have enough money to go to the Great British Beer Festival. A great place to make you feel happier about life.   

Beer Festival of the Year:

Mikkeller's Copenhagen Beer Celebration. You pay for a ticket with beer all in, you get a #craft stemmed beer thimble then you spend the next 4 hours going round drinking beer and chatting to the brewers. Quality.   

I put on a little beer festival in Sheffield with beery compadres, hard work, but massively rewarding just to see lots of people talking and enjoying the beers showcased - Sheff Brew Fest.

Sheff Brew bunting

Indy Man - just gets better every time. I've been going since the first one in 2012 - read this interview I posted with one of the founder's Jonathan Heyes HERE 

IMBC & stuff

Independent Retailer of the Year:

I'm too biased to answer this as Hop Hideout is my little beer gem in Sheffield. With over 400 different beers now in stock and an ever growing selection of quality ciders. Last year we also hosted monthly events including - Boak and Bailey hosting a reading and tasting for Brew Britannia, NMBCo Meet the Brewer, Bad Seed MtB, Steel City MtB, Leigh Linley beer blogging, Chris Hall and Craig Heap hosted an IPA and cheese evening and we hosted a little art exhibition called Tag! featuring Alec Doherty (Partizan), Rich Norgate (Magic Rock), Jim C (Kelham Island) and Ben Cooney. 

www.hophideout.co.uk

Ben did our Le Tour window - here he is in front

It's very exciting to see new indies keep popping up - I'm interested to go visit Tall Boys in Leeds and Hop, Burns and Black and We Brought Beer in London. Good luck to everyone. 

Online Retailer of the Year:

I just don't buy beer online but I do stalk the Mikkeller webshop to see what beers I'd love to try. 

peeking over at Mikkeller bottles

Best Beer Book or Magazine:

Boak and Bailey's thoroughly researched book, written with great care and attention to detail - Brew Britannia. It falls flat a little when they get closer to the the present, but I'm kinda looking forward to part II already. If Pete Brown says he wishes he'd written it, you know its a good one. 

Ray & Jess tasting and book reading at Hop Hideout

Best Beer Blog or Website:

I've learnt so much from reading this blog and continue to everytime I go to there - appellationbeer.com/blog/. You might have heard of him - he wrote a book 'For the Love of Hops'! genius aka Stan Hieronymus

Best Beer Twitterer:

Beer o'Clock show - beer musing whilst managing to get a host of people to join in. Not sure about the lock in - if you're involved it looks great fun, to watch it's like someone turned the camera around on a gaming convention (I'd rather watch the beer animated shoot out). BUT saying that the banter has it's moments of glory. 

In 2015 I’d Most Like To…write a beer 'zine, proper DIY like on paper with cut'n'paste and everything. AND do more of that beer and food 'thing' - is it a thing? I don't know but I enjoy the two things together. Especially when you have people like this giving it a go - 

NMBCo & Bundobust