The Golden Pints 2012

And so without further, or indeed any, ado, let's kick off with the first category, Best UK Draught Beer.

The winner of this category impressed the judge with its fusion of British pale golden ale and utterly bonkers new world hop overload. It is a beer that is so compellingly drinkable that the judge was compelled to drink several pints of it after a perfectly nice day out at the National Winter Ales Festival, falling asleep on the train home and having to get a £40 taxi from York back to Leeds. Bonus points go to the brewer of this beer for turning up at the Friends of Ham Smoked Porker / Quantum Tap Takeover and just drinking halves of it all night, ignoring everything else on offer. Yes, the Best UK Draught Beer 2012 is Magic Rock High Wire (cask version). Runner up is, well, pretty much everything else compared to High Wire to be honest.

As someone wholeheartedly committed to the death of the on-trade by running a successful bottle-wholesaling and retailing operation, the Best UK Bottled or Canned Beer is, of course, a category close to my heart. Unlike the previous category, competition here has been hard fought. Honourable mentions go to Oakham Green Devil, The Kernel Table Beer, Red Willow Ageless and, er, Magic Rock High Wire. Sadly, one beer has pummelled all of these into submission, just like Chuck Norris, an icon of uncompromising uncompromisingness held dear to the brewer of the winning beer. Yes, I'm talking #carnagenoir, James Kemp and Buxton Imperial Black India Pale Ale. Not only redefining "ruinously drinkable", but delivering a karate chop to the windpipe while it's at it.

The award of Best Overseas Draught Beer goes to a single pint of Ska Brewing Modus Hoperandi that I shared with Andy Taylor (@tabamatu) on the Leeds Open It night out. You can read a summary of that night here, but really, it's all summed up in this tweet.  Best Overseas Bottled or Canned Beer would have to be Southern Tier Iniquity, an imperial black ale that I bought to sell to people, and then ended up buying back from various shops at full retail value when I realised it's sheer brilliance.

I've no idea what Best Overall Beer means, but out of the beers above, I honestly couldn't choose between High Wire and Imperial Black, so over the Christmas holiday I intend to make some sort of imperial black 'n' tan out of them to see what happens.

Equally hard for me to make sense of is the Best Pumpclip or Label category. Red Willow, Moor Beer Co., and Bristol Beer Factory all look great on the bar or on the shelf, as do Marble. While it's easy to pick out a favourite beer, picking out the Best UK Brewery is a much harder task. So hard, in fact, that I'm not going to even try. The bar is set too high to split between them. And best - best at what? Making beer? No, no, I won't have it, this category is a NONSENSE! That said, the beers that I tried at Brodie's a couple of weeks ago (coupled with the odd bottle over the course of the year) were a real eye-opener - a brewery making great beers across a variety of styles, international collaborations (Mikkeller AND Three Floyds). I've not tried enough of their beers to claim them as a 2012 favourite, nor are they the best of 2012, but favourite new (to me) brewery, for sure. I'm rambling now, sorry. Argh, similarly, Best Overseas Brewery. At Borefts Beer Festival, I was blown away by Mikkeller and Jester King, so pick one, settle down, and shall we move on?

I don't get out much, so I'm not one to judge Pub/Bar of the Year. Seeing North Bar turn 15 this year was brilliant, and seeing Friends of Ham emerge blinking into the sunlight like an ickle faun was also a beautiful moment. No such qualms, however, about Beer Festival of the Year - hands down it was Indy Man Beer Con, which in my humble opinion was a world-class event. Or maybe it was Borefts Beer Festival. Hmm, I thought I had it nailed there. Oh well.

Voting for Supermarket of the Year is like voting for Best Cultural Apocalypse - whenever I buy beer there, I can feel the ghost of Hilaire Belloc tugging at my collar, whispering "From the towns all Inns have been driven: from the villages most.... Change your hearts or you will lose your Inns and you will deserve to have lost them. But when you have lost your Inns drown your empty selves, for you will have lost the last of England". Supermarkets are great for picking up decent beers at knock-down prices, and while I'm always disappointed to see brewers getting locked into volume production contracts and then bleating about how there's no money it, but they have to continue at that scale otherwise they won't be able to do anything, ever, I have to congratulate Morrisons for managing to have Worthington White Shield on sale at £1.40 for ages - congratu-fucking-lations to everyone concerned for devaluing an icon of British brewing. Still tasted great though.

Both Independent Retailer of the Year and Online Retailer of the Year are a bit hard to call, not least because of my vested interests in each, so what the hell, I'll say Beer-Ritz in Headingley and BeerRitz.co.uk, just because I co-own them. And also because brilliant people who really give a shit and love beer work at the shop. That's a good enough reason, right?

As anyone who has seen me doing my "jazz-hands are the hops, clog-stomping is the malt" interpretive beer dance, writing about beer is like, er, dancing about beer. This year I've read a lot of Stan Hieronymus, so I'm nominating Brewing with Wheat as my Best Beer Book or Magazine. His prose is always elegant and concise, with enough information to provoke further thoughtful investigation rather than give definitive answers. He's sort of Yin to Garrett Oliver's Yang.

Much as I'm loving the new eBuzzing nonsense algorithms (so much more random than Wikio!), I still read through almost everything posted in my blog roll (drop me an email if you'd like to be included). Mainly for providing as constant stream of literate and engaging beer notes, tempered hugely by being great company at Borefts, and insisting that 9pm on Saturday night was "doppelbock o'clock", award for Best Beer Blog or Website award goes to The Beer Nut. Best Beer Twitterer doesn't make any sense - it's like best brewery - best at what? Favourite? What is this, a popularity contest?

Popularity is what Best Online Brewery Presence is all about. Or is it an unpopularity contest? Either way, BrewDog manage to butt into my week fairly regularly, and at least a quarter of the time I have to remind myself to step away from the computer and put all that swearing back in the cupboard at the latest piece of countercultural froth they've managed to concoct.

Food and Beer Pairing of the Year was at the launch of Melissa Cole and Outlaw Brew Co's Mad Hatter Jasmine IPA, mainly because the beer was great and the food was ONLY THE BEST PORK PIE I'VE EVER EATEN!!! Quality always shines through.

In 2013 I’d most like to... get out a bit more.


DISCLOSURE - I buy and sell beer for a living, and work with almost all of the breweries mentioned above. I'm pretty sure my integrity is intact, your opinion may differ.

EBBC 2012 - Live Beer Blogging

I'm live-blogging from the European Beer Bloggers Conferrence - 10 beers in 50 minutes. IT'S GRIPPED, IT'S SORTED, LET'S LIVE BLOG!

Slaters Top Totty - I just mis-typed that as "Top Titty", which given the bunny girl label is pretty appropriate. Clean lemony nose, fresh clean and tart palate, nice and fresh, good. Not sure about the label - they defend it on the basis of it being ribald British humour in the seaside tradition. Sophie Atherton is unsurprisingly outraged, and drives the point home forcefully. But is the beer being overlooked in the furore? That would be a shame, because it's great - clean, zesty, fresh and delightful.

Camden USA Hells - unfiltered lager, lots of American C-hops. Slightly funky nose, might be the cattiness of the hops rather than any faults. Really nice bridge between old- and new-world traditions, clearly a quality, well-made lager with another layer of zesty, spritzy, great. "Brewed to suit the London palate" according to their PR guy - an unashamed pitch at the mid-market, but very good in spite of that - or perhaps because?

Adnams Ghost Ship - absolute classic English ale in the modern style - just what you'd want on a hot summer afternoon, or indeed on a busy speed-blogging event. Pale toffee colour, clean, biscuity with lots of fruity hop character. Very nice, and doesn't stamp its feet for attention. 

Innis & Gunn Scottish Pale Ale - limited release only available in Sweden. Big oaky vanilla nose, with plenty of hops added to try and balance the sweetness out a bit. Oddly for a relatively light beer, it really crashes onto the palate, sweet initially, turning zesty and floral. Tastes of new oak and citrussy hops. Bit of a car crash, but also sort of enjoyable.

Leeds Brewery Hellfire - very pale beer, zesty nose, very fresh, lovely sort of lemon sherbet and lime on the finish. Really nice fresh beer, although not convinced by the claims that "it's designed to be drunk from the bottle". Sam Moss from the brewery says that it's because the beer is meant to be drunk cold, from the bottle - the body gets big as the beer warms up. Nice idea, and seems to be well executed.

Otley Oxymoron Black IPA - Nick Otley says that this was their unashamed stab at having a go at the American craft beer style - "we wanted a piece of it" in his words. Big fruitiness on the nose, combined with smooth chocolate. Big flavours, great hop character and balance, but maybe a bit drying in the finish? Perhaps not helped by lack of condition (they apologised profusely about that)

Brains Dark - announced as Brains Dark Mild, which I guess is true to style.Dark brown, full chocolate aroma, vinous fruitiness. Finish is again vinous, fruity and complex. An essay in complexity and drinkability. Apparently, it's a great match for a Clark's pie, which is "some sort of meat pie" - apparently, nobody has ever had the courage to ask exactly what is in them.

Marble Emelisse Collaboration Earl Grey IPA - shot for a low bitterness in the expectation that there would be some tannic bitterness from the tea. Nose of citrus fruits and bergamot, unusual but enticing. Massive tangerine character on the palate, with more bergamot in the finish. Brilliant, enticing, and the first time I've ever used the phrase "dry teabagging" in conversation with a brewer. Excellent.

Roosters Baby-Faced Assassin - the classic guerilla IPA made for cask - how does it fare? Really well, given that they are following a big bruising bergamot IPA. Clean fruitiness, big mango hit, slightly toasty pale malt, unfolding endlessly on the palate. Tom used the phrase "went balls-out with the recipe", which I guess thematically nicely links back to the dry teabagging of the previous post.

Great Heck Stormin' Norman - "an easy drinking 6.5% session ale" according to the brewer Denzil. A little bit of roast barley in the mix brings out a toasty edge against which the hops brush up nicely. Big and hoppy, sweet tropical fruit brushing up against gently nutty malt. Lovely.

Gout & About: A Slow Walk Through the Northern Quarter

Pictured: (L-R): James Campbell (Marble), Kelly Ryan (Thornbridge), Colin Stronge (Marble), Dave Bailey (Hardknott)

Gout is a particularly painful condition, consisting of a build-up of uric acid crystals (or urates) in the joints. Gout can affect any joint, but classically it appears in the second joint of the big toe. I have classical gout. It was painful last week, but this week, it's eased up a bit, and I'm almost normal. Going for a walk through Manchester's Northern Quarter last weekend wasn't a great idea, but throw in a brewery visit and a great pub, and I'm powerless to resist, gout or not.

Marble Brewery have been brewing for over a decade, and brewing damn good beers at that. Until recently, all their beers were certified organic and vegan, happily defying my assertion that organic beers are always compromised on flavour. Marble's beers have flavour packed into them - in fact, they clearly have too much flavour, because as soon as their beer is poured, the excess flavour leaps out of the glass, filling noses, rooms, cities with happy hoppiness. The organic certification has been allowed to slide for a few beers, mainly due to hop scarcity and pricing. The brewery has moved from its (by all accounts) homespun location at the back of the pub to a smartly whitewashed railway arch just down the road. The beers are still great, and their pub, The Marble Arch, is a jewel.

If one thing characterises Marble's beers, it's the extraordinary hop characters they coax into their pale beers. Manchester Bitter (4.2%abv), Summer (4.5%), Lagonda IPA (5%) and Dobber (5.9%) are stuffed beyond belief with exotic hop flavour and aroma. Dobber is the apogee of how much hop character you can stuff into a pale beer - lime, mango, grapefruit, mandarin, lychee. If Dobber wasn't so good, it would seem ridiculous to shower it with so many descriptors, but it's totally justified. My experience is that this beer is slightly more intense in bottle than in cask form, but your mileage (and ideology) may vary. Marble make other beers too - their Ginger is roundly praised, Chocolate is a rich delight, and get comfy, because there's a great tale attached to their latest release (sadly now all gone) Vuur & Vlam.

Vuur & Vlam is a beer originally brewed by the Dutch Brouwerij De Molen. It's a hearty American-style IPA, all resinous hops overlaying toffeeish malts. For this year's Borefts beer festival, festival organiser (and brewer at De Molen) Menno Olivier made the recipe for Vuur & Vlam available to all the invited breweries, and the challenge was to brew the best version they could. Marble's version came second. You might think that there's no shame in coming second to a brewery like De Molen, but in fact, De Molen's version came third. Talk about beating someone at their own game....

The visit was part the latest Twissup organised by Mark Dredge and Andy Mogg. The brewery and pub were the highlight of the Manchester leg. Being of sound mind but unsound body, I sat out the Huddersfield leg, where The Grove will have undoubtedly been the other highlight. You can read other reports on the full event here: BeerReviews.co.uk Pencil&Spoon Tandleman IMHAGOB Oh Good Ale

The Michelin Guide uses its star ranking system to rate restaurants. These stars originally had a specific meaning. One star indicated "a very good restaurant in its category, worth a stop." Two-stars meant "excellent cooking, worth a detour," and three stars reserved for "exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey". Without even trying the food (which looked great), I'd pitch the Marble Arch somewhere between a two- and three-star rating: Great beer straight out of the brewery, an incredible tiled interior, and food that made me hungry when it went by on a plate. I'll be making a special journey back there soon.

Man Makes Living By Selling Beer

I'm not sure how this is going to work, but I thought I'd give it a go. Most people know that I manage Beer-Ritz in Headingley, Leeds (it says so in my "About Me" bit over there on the left). Well, it seems that a lot of people don't know that Beer-Ritz also runs a mail order service at www.beerritz.co.uk.

The mail-order service doesn't run from the shop, it runs from our warehouse near Wetherby. In an attempt to publicise it, they've asked me to select some mixed cases from breweries that I like, do some tasting videos about them, and see if we can add something to the online shopping experience in the process.

From my point of view, it's fun, because I get to do more of what I enjoy - tasting beer, and writing and talking about it. In fact, it's better than fun, because (smugness alert) I actually get paid to do what I enjoy. From my employer's point of view, it adds a point of difference to their online shop, potentially driving trade, and maybe for their customers, it allows them to make a more informed decision about the beers they buy.

I'm not going to endorse any beers that I don't personally enjoy, because that would be stupid, and would cost a lot more than they can afford would ruin any independent credibility I have. But I'd be interested in hearing what you, dear reader, think about it. You can have a look at what I've been doing here - or search for "zak" in the search box at the top of the page. Does it add value (without adding cost)? Will it help people make a decision? For the less beer-savvy, will it help point out good quality beers, or is it just more me-me-look-at-me nonsense on my part? More to the point, when we put mixed cases of Marble 50cl bottles on the site in a couple of weeks, will you break the internet trying to buy some? Will you read their blog that we've started, and I'm maintaining?

Cask Ale Week

It's Cask Ale Week. It's about good beer, cask beer, real ale, whatever (thanks Adrian). It's a week that is a celebration of one of our finest British foodstuffs, and so what I want you all to do is stop reading this blog, writing your blog, watching Glee on the iPlayer (whatever Glee and the iPlayer might be, I'm not quite sure), and go to the pub and drink some cask ale. And be thankful.

I'm as guilty as anyone of not promoting cask ale, but in my defence, I do run one of the best beer shops in the UK, and consequently am more of a bottled beer man. But I do love good beer in all of its forms, and one of its most unusual, exciting forms is that of cask ale.

I'm sure you know this, but cask ale is a uniquely British product. On paper, it's lunacy: it's an unfinished food product that is turned over to a pub landlord to complete. If you've ever seen Michael Jackson's "The Beer Hunter" TV series, you'll know that he makes the same point while interviewing Mark Dorber, then of the legendary White Horse on Parson's Green. Part of the skill of cellaring beer to peak condition is what makes a good landlord, a good pub, and happy customers.

Good cask ale has a completely unique taste and texture. It's live, unfiltered, and refermented in the vessel from which it is finally dispensed. Served at cellar temperature (10 to 12 degrees Celsius), and with a gentle prickle of natural carbonation, there is nothing like it. Done right, it should be cool, refreshing and moreish.

Of course, the brighter amongst you will have spotted a problem. As an unfinished product, there are various things that can go wrong with it. Cask ale isn't a magic bullet, and it doesn't guarantee good beer. There are many filtered and kegged (or bottled) beers that can kick the arse of poorly kept cask ale. Like any artisanal food product, it needs to be treated right to get the best out of it.

There we are. Do what you must: join CAMRA: buy the Good Beer Guide: visit Cask Marque: read the Cask Ale Week website. But above all, go out and drink some cask beer.






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A New Year of Beer - Marble Special

So, here we are on the cusp of a new decade, and I find myself at home, making the first post on a new blog. If ever there was a time to visit the cellar and pull out a special bottle, this is it.

And this is literally a Special bottle - in fact, as you can see from the photo, it's a 75cl, cork and cage sealed, wax dipped bottle of Marble Special. There aren't very many of these about, and although I know that this will improve with a year's cellaring, I've decided to bite the bullet and crack it.

Marble have a reputation for doing great things with hops, and accordingly, it's the hops that get you first. But they only lead the way by a fraction, on the nose and the palate, as they are backed up by a huge figgy, rummy malt note. This is a big barley wine with a chewy hop character. In a year, that hop character will have subsided, leaving the malt to dominate. But for tonight, I'm glad that I've committed infanticide on this great bottle of beer.

Marble make great beers, and their devotion to making good bottled beers is such that they can seemingly never meet demand. They are stringent about a long period of warm and then cold conditioning for their bottles. They could produce more, and once their new brewery is bedded in, they almost certainly will. But for now, this bottle of special Special.

I'm pleased I managed to bring myself to open this bottle tonight - it was the right beer for the occasion, with a plate of roast beef sandwiches and an early night on the cards (of necessity, sadly). I've got a lot more special beer down there that I hope to open and share with you. But don't get your hopes up - I'll be drinking it, and sharing my opinions with you.

So if you managed to broach a bottle you've been saving, I'd love to hear about it. And better still, what bottles did you pass over, waiting for a more special occasion? Don't you worry that the Westvleteren you're hoarding will be over the hill by the time you have the courage to open it?