Golden Pints 2012

It's that time of year when we look back before looking forward to the new one. With that in mind, below are my Golden Pint Beer Awards nominations for 2012.

Best UK Draught (Cask or Keg) Beer: Buxton Gold. Had a bit of a moment at Reading beer festival this year, which prompted an impassioned tweet. After several boring brown beers, I ordered a half of this. It sung from the glass right down to the last mouthful. Then I went back for a pint, and another, and maybe one more. Then I missed my train home.

Best UK Bottled or Canned Beer: Magic Rock Cannonball. This beer has just got better and better. The latest batch is absolutely sensational and now that they're bottling in the brewery, we'll hopefully see wider availability of the Huddersfield nectar.

Best Overseas Draught Beer: Regular twitter followers will be bored by now, but Green Flash West Coast IPA at the brewery was special.

Best Overseas Bottled or Canned Beer: I've been a bit spoiled this year but the beer in question was a recent, small sample in London of Anchorage Galaxy White IPA. Wow! Where can I buy one to enjoy at home, please?

Best Overall Beer: Thornbridge Raven. See last year's post. No reason to change. I think it's special and the world beer cup judges agree, so there! Kernel Citra IPA ran it close though!

Best Pumpclip or Label: Weird Beard Shark Biscuit (collaboration between Weird Beard and London Brewing Company), designed by Daniel Vane. Both breweries are worth following this year with the former due to start commercial operations in January and the talented Daniel having recently taken over as head brewer at the latter. 

I've sampled plenty of prototypes/home brew from both this year and have enjoyed it all!

Best UK Brewery: Summer Wine have gone from strength to strength this year and I think 2013 is going to be even better for them. Two of the nicest and hardest working guys in UK brewing deserve every inch of the success they've earned, and will earn.

Best Overseas Brewery: Stone, again.

Pub/Bar of the Year: Craft Beer Co, Islington. It only opened last month but is already my favourite London boozer after just a few visits. For those who've not been, think Craft Beer Co (Leather Lane) meets traditional old London pub with a modern twist, complete with individually styled rooms and an Ol' Joanna!

Beer Festival of the Year: Borefts. Wow! What took me so long to get to this festival?

Supermarket of the Year: Waitrose. Love that I can buy an array of local beer in town and, should I feel the urge, fill my basket with White Swan or Jaipur.

Independent Retailer of the Year: I only visited once (bad me) but the Beer Boutique in Putney is ace and I will return soon.

Online Retailer of the Year: Has to be Beer Merchants, in that they've had most of my hard earned this year. Also think their social media presence is fantastic.

Best Beer Book or Magazine: John Palmer's 'How to brew' has been on my bedside table all year. It's great for beginners but has so much more too.

Best Beer Blog or Website: Oh Beery Me by @SheriffMitchell has been fantastic all year. Committing to review a beer a day for a year is one thing but doing it with such passion and diversity really set this blog aside from others this year, and some clever writing kept it fresh throughout.

That said, I must also give an honorable mention to Phil Hardy's Beersay. Phil has architected some fantastic online events this year and is another person I was delighted to meet and share a few beers with. His blog has gained a lot of readers and rightly so.

Best Beer Twitterer: @broadfordbrewer (David Bishop). Has supported me loads on the home brewing front and is as genuinely nice in person as his online persona suggests. Hope to share more beer with him next year - preferably stuff he's brewed!

Best Online Brewery Presence: The one I've visited most is BrewDog's.

Food and Beer Pairing of the Year: This was at the beer blogger's conference back in May - Sharp's Quadrupel served with banana and cream tart. I'll let Leigh over at The Good Stuff fill in the blanks.
          

In 2013 I’d Most Like To: Well my 'most like to' in 2012 was to start home brewing. That's gone pretty well, so in 2013 I'd most like to brew on proper big kit!

Open Category: You Choose: Still the most pointless debate: Cask v Keg v Bottle v Can v Wheelie Bin – I don’t care as long as the brewer is happy I’m getting their product via a dispense method which does it justice. (Yes, this is the same as last year. It's still just as prevalent and pointless).

Weird Beard Brew Co - New Prototypes & Shark Biscuit

I recently caught up with Gregg and Bryan from Weird Beard Brew Co (<- check out their shiny new website) and other than a chance to have a good natter about what they'd been up to since their meet the brewer at The Rake, they kindly provided some new prototypes brews for me to sample.

More on the beers shortly. First of all it was great to hear that they've finally got premises sorted, kit ordered and are days away from finalising their lease as summarised on their blog here. That means they should be brewing before the end of the year which is great news for the thriving London brewing scene. 

Gregg and Bryan have had something of a frustrating time getting things off the ground, having been let down on two previous premises. Back in April, the target was to be brewing from around about now. Given these set backs, that hasn't been possible but they've both working hard on prototypes brews and one of these (Sadako Imperial Stout) scooped a bronze medal at the UK National Homebrew Competition with the oaked version of the same receiving an honorable mention.

A shortage of the 'new world' hops used in some of their original recipes has provided a huge challenge, with some of their intended core range of beers having to be tweaked or replaced with other brews until they can secure the ingredients they desire. The allocation of hops is a source of frustration for many UK craft breweries. With priority being given to established customers, new breweries face a real challenge when working with importers to purchase hops and are often fighting for scraps - a few kilos here or there - or missing out altogether. 

Consistency will be key to their success of course, so securing a regular supply of the ingredients used in their core range is vital. This brings me nicely to the first prototype beer. This was a re-brew of the Sunshine Saison I'd sampled at The Rake. Reading my notes back then ("a nose dominated by the French Saison yeast with a hint of lemon and peppery spice") and comparing with the beer in my glass provided a bit of a flash back to that very wet April afternoon, and not just because the weather was the same. A good sign on the consistency front.

The other two beers were new to me. The first, Holy Hoppin' Hell, is a US style double IPA, weighing in at a hefty 9.3% ABV. The beer poured a deep amber red with an off-white pillowy head. The nose was delicious with oodles of orange, mango, grapefruit being followed by hints of caramel - classic of the style. These aromas were backed up by the taste with some pineapple and bitter grapefruit pith thrown in to the mix. The finish was long and bitter with a nice boozy warmth coming in at the end. 

The second is called Black Perle Stout. This is a milk stout aged on coffee beans, brewed using only the Perle hop and coming in at 4.5% ABV.  This poured jet black with a great looking honeycomb bubble head. The nose was dominated by black coffee. The coffee was the first flavour I got too followed by a pleasant sweetness which provided balance against the bitter finish. This was a solid brew and one that I suspect would really sing when cask conditioned. With the ABV being session friendly, I could see myself downing a few of these.

Weird Beard recently brewed their first commercial beer. This was a collaboration with London Brewing, a microbrewery based at the The Bull in Highgate, and another amateur brewer Daniel Vane, who brews under the pseudonym The Dukes Brewery. The guys blogged about their brew day here (<- check out the sparge arm 'modification'). Dan also provided the art work (below) which looks great. The beer, a 7.4% Aussie-hopped IPA named Shark Biscuit, which rather fittingly is Aussie slang for newbie surfers, launches on Tuesday 9th October at The Bull from 7pm. If you're in town, why not head along. I reckon the beer will pair nicely with The Bull's excellent spicy buffalo wings and intend to test this theory by having my fill of both.  All in the interests of entertaining you, dear readers!

Weird Beard Brewing Company

Bold, fresh branding

The London brewing scene is booming at the moment and The Rake Bar's annual London beer week festival provided a great opportunity to showcase some of what the likes of Kernel (incidentally, the backdrop to this blog is a photo of their shiny new brewery), Fuller's, Winsdor & Eton and Redemption are producing. It also provided a platform for some startup breweries to get in on the action and a stormy Sunday afternoon was the perfect excuse to sit in The Rake's cosy bar and sample some beer from the upcoming Weird Beard Brewing Company (@weirdbeard_brew).  Weird Beard is not yet a commercial brewery but their operation is starting to shape up nicely with premises secured and brewing plans being drawn up.

Bryan Spooner and Gregg Irwin

The brewery is the brain child of Director and Brewer Gregg Irwin (@dredpenguin) and Brewer Bryan Spooner (@weirdbeardbryan), both established home brewers who were delighted to take home awards from the London and South East Craft Beer Festival back in November 2011 (see Gregg's blog post for details). Encouraged by the feedback their beers were getting and the support from London Amateur Brewers, they decided to take the bold step of starting a commercial brewery, as wittily explained on their blog. The journey to where they are today has not been an easy one. Weird Beard will be sharing a space and equipment with Ellenberg's Brewery, another start up. Their initial planned location, under a railway arch between South Harrow and Rayners Lane, fell victim to TfL red tape and undue delays with securing a lease. Not wanting to waste any more time chasing their tails, the two breweries sought out a new location and recently secured an industrial unit beside the Grand Union Canal in Hanwell. They hope to be in within a month or so and from there will acquire either used or new equipment and start the process of building it out (any breweries out there who are looking to sell used vessels, please get in touch with Gregg - they're looking to build a 10BBL plant). They're tentatively aiming to be fully up and running by September.

So, what about the beer!? Gregg and Bryan brought along three beers to sample. A single-hop pale ale brewed with the Junga hop (from Poland). Sunshine Saison and Fade To Black, a Cascadian dark ale or black IPA if you prefer. All three were met with approval by those gathered in the bar. The Junga hop pale ale had a delightful nose filled with sweet marmalade notes. It was conditioned perfectly with a refreshing carbonation fizzing orange flavours over the tongue leading to a subtle bitter finish. The Saison had a nose dominated by the French saison yeast with a hint of lemon and peppery spice from the Pacific Jade hops. Again, a lively carbonation washed it around the mouth where there was more lemon to be found. This was really refreshing and my sample glass was empty within a couple of minutes - very enjoyable. The last beer and the one most of those present seemed to like the most was the Black IPA. The dry hopping was exquisite and really inviting with a combination of Sorachi, Citra and Amarillo providing lovely citrus aroma. The taste was one of more citrus, especially grapefruit and lemon underpinned by the coffee notes of the dark malts. The finish was long and bitter. This was a very good beer indeed and one I hope makes it to their core range.

Gregg explained some of the challenges of ramping up from brewing in his shed to full commercial scale. The New Zealand hops (especially Nelson Sauvin) they want for some of their core beers are in short supply with orders being taken months in advance. He hopes they can secure a few kilos and has committed a fair chunk of their budget to a large order. However, their orders understandably sit behind those of established customers. Until Weird Beard finds out what their allocation is, the plans for the initial range of beers can't be finalised and they're expecting to have to tweak and adjust recipes based on what's available to them when they start brewing.

Gregg signs the famous 'wall of brewers' at The Rake

Bryan adds his signature, just below that of Garret Oliver!

The rest of the afternoon was spent sharing and talking about some of great beer The Rake has to offer and I was glad I took time out to go and meet team Weird Beard. Their passion for good beer and brewing is one they love to share over a beer or two. They'll certainly make a positive impact to the London brewing scene and if the beers sampled on that wet Sunday afternoon are anything to go by, will be one to watch with interest.