Hazy recollection

It's the season for pointless time-consuming traditions and dull end-of-year lists: yes, The Golden Pints are upon us once more. 2018's deliberation beer is one I acquired at the Mikkeller takeaway bar in Copenhagen airport with my final fistful of kroner. Hazy is a New England IPA of 6.6% ABV, an opaque orange-yellow, topped by a thick white head. In the minus column there's a pinch of dreggy yeast and a rising garlic note as it warms; the principal plus, however, is a massive juiciness -- mostly sweet orange but there's a balancing citric bitterness too, from the Simcoe, I'm guessing. Three months on from canning and this was still a perfect example of this style done well. It does need to be consumed cold, though: I was only half way through deliberations when it warmed up to the point of losing juice. A lesson for me to make my decisions quickly. Anyway, without further review, here are...

The Golden Pint Awards 2018

Best Irish Cask Beer: O Brother: The Whippersnapper
This cask-conditioned Berliner weisse ran a close race against another oddity, Third Barrel's Raspberry Stout, but just pipped it.

Best Irish Keg Beer: Urban Brewing: Barrel Aged Sour
Barrel-aged pale farmhousey beers rocked my world this year. Extremely honorable mentions go also to Rascals for the Chardonnay Sparkling Ale and DOT's Dainty Wood. This one, while perhaps not the most complex, had the best mix of classic wild-fermented and wood-aged flavours, very like an authentic Belgian gueze. I hope they can recreate it, and that there are customers in the local market who appreciate this sort of thing.

Best Irish Bottled Beer: Larkin's: Baltic Porter
This award is based not solely on the quality of the beer -- though that is consistently excellent. It's almost as much the availability: this one has been there for me at regular intervals throughout the year; occasions when I just want something unfussy but great to drink. It looks to have been renamed now, as "Dark Matter", but it still tastes perfect.

Best Irish Canned Beer: Hope: Hop Hash DIPA
My standout from The Big Grill Festival this year translated perfectly into canned form. Citric hoppy deliciousness.

Best Overseas Draught: Purpose: Smoeltrekker #68
Another one of those barrelled sour blondes, hailing from Colorado but showing up on tap at the Leuven Innovation Beer Festival back in the spring. All the oaky spices.

Best Overseas Bottled Beer: Sierra Nevada: Tequila Barrel Otra Vez
I've been a bit grumbly about Sierra Nevada's harmless gose-alike but I was genuinely wowed when I happened across a bottle of the tequila-barrel-aged version.

Best Overseas Canned Beer: Collective Arts: Ransack the Universe
In Ireland, "Overseas canned beer" is mostly going to mean "some murk from England with an abstract design on it" -- there are a hell of a lot of those on the market at any given moment and I don't bother trying to keep up with them. So instead I'm picking some murk from Canada with a sort-of abstract design on it, and very nice it was too.

Best Collaboration Brew: Jester Zinne
This one from De La Senne and Jester King -- barrels, funk, sour: you get the picture -- could equally have been awarded Best Overseas Bottle but I'm slotting it into the collaboration bracket where there's less competition instead.

Best Overall Beer: Urban Brewing: Barrel Aged Sour
Scouring the above for the most memorable, pupil-dilating, beer experience of the year, and I think this is the one.

Best Branding: Kinnegar
The Donegal brewer switched its minimalist monochrome designs to the new busy cartoon bunnies and their associates. I haven't seen it on a label yet, but I loved the design for Rustbucket, featuring the late eponymous doggo.

Best Pump Clip: Beerbliotek: Shakes Fist Angrily
Still amused by the sheer daftness of this.

Best Bottle/Can Label: YellowBelly: Covert Operation
The Molloy's guys and YellowBelly are up to something. With a fox.

Not a skull to be seen.

Best Irish Brewery: Rye River
2016's winner returns to the top spot, though for different reasons this time. It still does excellent contract-brewing work, and the Brown Ale and Saison for Lidl were two very strong new strings to its bow, but the five limited edition seasonal launches really marked out the progression of 2018, and we got hints too of a pilot series a few weeks ago. The Rye River brand has come of age, and attached itself to some very fine beers.

Best Overseas Brewery: The Exchange
In a busy and diverse drinking year, no single overseas brewery stood out for me. This award is going on visitor experience, then, and the smart, bijou taproom of this place in Niagara-on-the-Lake, visited in September. It brews good stuff too.

Best New Brewery Opening 2018: Four Provinces
OK technically this was a 2017 launch, but it was 2018 before the new range started getting out and about. Láidir in particular was the best new regular-production Irish beer of the year, but there's no Golden Pint for that.

Pub/Bar of the Year: UnderDog
In the grand tradition of the previous year's Best Newcomer winning Best Pub this time round, UnderDog takes the prize. Anyone who's spent any amount of time there will know why. It's always entertaining and only a small part of that is because of what's on tap. Shout-out to Paddy, Barry and Chris who make it what it is.

Best New Pub/Bar Opening 2018: GIST
I think I'm right with the timing here: I don't see any reference to its existence prior to last January. Anyway, Brussels has a new star in its pub firmament; a lovely blend of traditional cosy brown-café vibes with a bang-up-to-date modern beer list. A most honorable mention goes to the Metalman bar in Waterford which opened just over a year ago, pouring great beers and hosting fun events on the city's quayside.

Beer Festival of the Year: Hagstravaganza
The only Irish beer festival that people talk about; the centre of the calendar for the last two years; performing stellar geek-service while also being just a fun day out. After a few hiccups in year one, the 2018 outing nailed it.

Supermarket of the Year: Lidl
Time was this was a back-and-forth between the supermarket near work (Fresh in Smithfield) and the supermarket near home (SuperValu Sundrive) but both have lost crucial staff resulting in the loss of elite status. I'm going with Lidl instead this year, largely because of the Rye River commissions above, as well as the exotic oddities from the summer. More tickworthy exotic oddities please!

Independent Retailer of the Year: Stephen Street News
Unlike the supermarkets, Martin's and DrinkStore have done nothing at all wrong, but here comes the disruptor, jumping on the aluminium bandwagon and making exemplary use of price-points and social media to corner the poorly-served ubergeek end of the Dublin beer market. Long may it continue.

Online Retailer of the Year: YellowBelly Brewery
I don't usually award this because I don't buy beer on the internet, except this year I did: I joined the first outing of the YellowBelly Beer Club which meant four six-packs in the post. As I mentioned in relation to the last one, they weren't all brilliant beers, but there's still a bit of fun in parcel-post beer delivery, especially when it's a local outfit rather than a, say, Scottish or pseudo-Danish one.

Best Beer Book or Magazine: The Good Beer Guide To Belgium, 8th ed.
The mostly-annual award for The One Beer Book I Read This Year goes to Joe and Tim for this one. It is genuinely good. You don't get Golden Pints, or any pints, for putting out dreck.

Best Beer Blog or Website: Every Pub In Dublin
I've mentioned in previous years how I'm a sucker for a grand project. Dublin has two which came to my attention this year, attempting to visit all the pubs in Dublin (for a given value of "Dublin"), so shout-out to Dublin By Pub, but for sheer indefatigable doggedness, and regular laugh-out-loud pen portraits, this one goes to Cian.

Simon Johnson Award for Best Beer Twitterer: @Bill_Linane
It was well worth keeping a blackboard record of how many times each Twitter account amused me during 2018. The final tally shows Bill to be out in front. Well done Bill.

Best Brewery Website/Social media: Eight Degrees
The most frequent winner of this category takes it again and godammit it shouldn't be this easy for them. It's not rocket science for breweries to put information about their new releases out on the internet so customers can see what they're buying when they're buying it, yet Eight Degrees is the only one that has the information to hand when I want it. A spirited, and much appreciated, attempt was made on Instagram by Whiplash but they still didn't manage to document all their own releases (Love is Lost? Hello?). Meanwhile, every other Irish brewery: pleeease do this better.

And there we are. Can you believe that that's ten whole years of Golden Pints? Madness. Big thanks to Mark and Andy, of course, who originated the categories, ones which are looking a bit clunky for the current beer scene, but my unhallowed hands shall not disturb them, or the beer world's done for. See you in 2019!

The last of them

I've been away for the last couple of weeks, leaving in a rush of hastily-scheduled blog posts. Today's concerns the final few Irish beers I tried before I left.

We begin with Toothless Grizzly, the first brand new beer from Mountain Man in quite a while. They've badged this as a schwarzbier but my pint at the Black Sheep was distinctly amber-coloured, and a bit murky with it. The aroma is a strange mix of sweet dark malt and an out of place sour tang. Thankfully the sourness goes no further. It's properly crisp and lager-like, with a mild orangey citrus in with husky biscuit before finishing on a green and peppery bitter noble hop bite. On the downside, it's over-carbonated: nobody wants a flat lager, but here the jagged fizz is detrimental to the flavour; and, just as the colour is wrong, the distinctive dark lager flavours -- charcoal, liquorice, tar -- are completely missing. The recipe has potential but desperately needs darkening.

YellowBelly produced a beer to commemorate 85 years of Molloy's off licences. Covert Operation is described as a juicy pale ale and very much delivers on that promise. A bolt of pineapple strikes the nostrils immediately on opening, and it pours a hazy medium orange. The texture is fluffy, as fashion dictates, and all the fruit is worn up front: ripe mango, passionfruit and tangerine. There's just enough of a citrus punch late on to balance it, as well as a wisp of savoury garlic. It's very similar in style to Trouble's now-legendary Ambush, with the same level of satisfying drinkability. The tall can was emptied in short order.

At Hagstravaganza I missed the third Canvas offering, Double Wingmirror, so I was pleased when it showed up bottled in DrinkStore. The first warning light comes with the label, where "Double IPA" has been unconvincingly blacked out. It fizzed busily on opening, pouring a dark copper colour. There's a homebrewish yeasty spice in the aroma and the flavour mixes Belgian esters with burnt caramel and a touch of phenolic smoke. The marker was right: this isn't anywhere close to being a double IPA. I'm not quite sure what it is instead: though less than six weeks in the bottle it reminds me of long-abandoned home brewed pale ales, their hoppy days long past and the deathless yeast steadily drying them out. My 33cl bottle cost €4: top dollar for a beer that really doesn't warrant it.

Back from my train trip it was straight to The Brew Dock to try the newest from Galway Bay. It's the second sequel to Goodbye Blue Monday, a collaboration with Begyle called Last Goodbye, just a little weaker than the original at 5.8% ABV and utilising Hallertau Blanc, Azacca and Ella. I expected Opal Fruits from that lot but got Fruit Salad chews instead. It's mouthwateringly juicy: an almost sickly blend of pineapples, mangoes and apricots. There's an oddly prominent booze buzz cranking this up unexpectedly, but thankfully also a lime and guava tropical bitterness, shading into garlic as it warms on the palate. It is, above all, a fun beer, much as Goodbye Blue Monday was: a fruity hop celebration, albeit no longer served by the pint. No matter: you probably don't want this getting warm.

Whiplash treated us to two new double IPAs in August. I tried Do You Wanna Touch Me, their collaboration with Wylam, at Alfie Byrne's. The murk level is off the charts here. I mean, it's not even beige, more a bile-coloured grey-brown. It smelled fantastic, though: fresh tropical fruit, with a background hint of custard. 8.3% ABV means you get an alcohol burn as the first flavour. The fruit is in the middle and, unlike so many of these, it actually sticks around for subsequent sips, staying sweet and interesting and fun. The usual hangers-on are present for those that expect them: an oily garlic buzz and some dry gritty yeast and protein bits, but they confine themselves to the finish and the next mouthful tops you up with mango and pineapple again. It's an excellent interpretation of a super-fashionable style that is done too poorly too often.

So what's the point of a simultaneously-released 8% ABV one that's hopped with Citra like the other. Eventually looks a little more appetising but is still a milky opaque colour. I get caraway and poppyseed in the aroma, with a softer but acidic garlic backing track. To taste it's very sweet, with non-specific artificial fruit, like Refreshers or Lucozade, plus a smoothie-like cream texture. It's all softness and fuzz, leaving me wanting more punch and zing. It avoids any boozy heat but only by wrapping it in a lemon-scented fluffy blanket. This is one of those beers which I'm sure has an audience but isn't for me.

Twin releases also came from Stone Barrel. Poppin' Pils is in a tall can and describes itself as a "hopped up lager". It's 4.5% ABV and a slightly hazy golden colour. The aroma is quite sweet, with an air of lemon and lime shandy, plus perhaps a hint of scented detergent. A malt sweetness begins the flavour: brioche and Maltesers. The quite flat texture did nothing to dispel that, then after a second or two there's a sweeping spinach bitterness, fading to candy and bubblegum. It's not the crisp lager I was hoping for. The flavours aren't bad, but they don't gel together well, malt hops clashing where they should complement, resulting something a bit too sweet while also a bit too bitter.

The second in the set is a black IPA. Remember them? It gives the game away right on the tin, with the name Dark, Dank, Pineapple? though perhaps it's not sure of itself. Poured, it just about passes the blackness test, showing brown to red at the edges. The head dissipates disappointingly quickly but there's still a lovely aroma, full of herbs, spices and fruit of all sorts. For a tiddling 4.3% ABV it's a thick lad, slick and tarry. The flavour presents spiced red cabbage, a classic component of good black IPA, then a harder dark roasted bitterness and a long lemon rind finish. It's another one where the carbonation is too low and the sensation is a little watery as a result. It's still a decently complex black IPA. The clashing smashing flavours work so much better in this style than in a pils.

That's it for today. It's nearly time to go home and find out what the Irish brewing scene has been up to in my absence.