Gold stars

As usual, the last post of the year brings the Golden Pint Awards, begun by Andy Mogg and Mark Dredge back in 2009 and celebrating the best of the year's beers and beer-related places and events.

And as usual I'm compiling mine with the aid of a suitable beer. Two, actually, this year: the bottled winter specials from The Porterhouse. I start with Dark Star Ale, a big-hitting 11%-er. It's a deep shade of ruby making me think it's going to be along the lines of a barley wine. And there is a certain vinous quality: ripe fruit and tannins. The wine gets hacked into a vermouth shortly afterwards when a herbal bitterness is introduced. As it warms the drinker is taken on a tour of the luxury goods aisle, passing fine cigars, high-end chocolate and hand-tooled leather. For all that, it's clean and easy drinking; the sweet dark malts don't build on the palate, getting thoroughly scrubbed off by the bitterness on each mouthful. It's a serious beer, but very tasty. It left me very curious about how it would fare after whiskey maturation, and I love that I didn't have to wait to find out.

Now that The Porterhouse has its own distillery in Kerry, the whiskey version is of course called Dingle Dark Star. It picks up an extra ABV point from the process though looks exactly the same. Honeyish Irish whiskey is very present on the nose but the difference is less apparent on tasting. It still has the raisins and the chocolate, it's just now there's an extra honeycomb complexity. Perhaps the biggest change is that it's smoother: all the hard bitter edges have been rounded off, quite pleasingly. The alcohol comes to the fore, and it feels much denser than the unbarrelled version, though also less complex. Anyone who wanted the previous one to be more stout-like will be comforted by this, and while it's lovely I'm personally not sure it's an improvement on the original. Still, it's an enjoyable slow sipper, which is exactly what's required as I face into:

The Golden Pint Awards 2017

Best Irish Cask Beer: Ursa Major
It's been a good year for Irish cask overall, and special mention needs to go to O Brother first of all for their consistent supply of cask beer throughout 2017. My single favourite was the strong brown porter from YellowBelly which I drank at the Franciscan Well cask festival this year. A further commendation goes to Trouble Brewing's Walk On the Mild Side too, even if it was improved by kegging.

Best Irish Keg Beer: The Harvest King
There were a remarkable number of world-class keg beers this year, especially in the sour and Bretted category. The White Hag's Olcan and Kinnegar's Phunk Bucket were both stunning at Hagstravaganza, and both are still around in bottled form -- try them if you see them. However it was YellowBelly (again) who made me put my glass down and say "wow".

Best Irish Bottled Beer: Independent Coconut Porter
Cheating because I drank this (copiously) when it was on draught, and loved it, but it also exists bottled and has just been re-released. Designed for those who don't tolerate half measure when it comes to coconut in beers.

Best Irish Canned Beer: The Fresh Prince of Kildare
Again, I probably had more of this triple IPA on draught than canned, and the canned version was slightly different, though still excellent. Dead Centre's début Marooned was another metal-jacketed delight this year.

Best Overseas Draught: Timmermans Oude Lambiek 2014
This was a surprise tick, presented by Thomas of John Martin's brewery at the EBCU meeting in Brussels back in April. I presume the brewery has vast foeders full of the stuff but have no idea how available it is. Well worth checking out if you see it, however. A special mention goes to Hill Farmstead's Florence.

Best Overseas Bottled Beer: Druif
Another sour one? Yeah, I guess. New Dutch brewer Tommie Sjef was pouring this at Borefts in September. You can't beat a grape lambic(ish) for accessible complexity, or complex accessibility, for that matter. Other bottled eye-openers this year came from Epic with their Elder Brett and the amazing 2008 vintage of Cantillon's Lou Pepe Kriek.

Best Overseas Canned Beer: Pay It Forward
I had never heard of West Sixth Brewing in Kentucky before this cocoa-infused porter of theirs landed at the RDS in September, courtesy of the Brewers Association, and jolly good it was too.

Best Collaboration Brew: Touching the Scald
Perfection in a pint glass at 4% ABV. Props to Galway Bay and Whiplash for making it, and brown malt takes the Golden Pint Award for Best Malt, 200th year running.

Best Overall Beer: Independent Coconut Porter
Drinkability is the deciding criterion here, which means it came down to a straight fight between the Coconut Porter and Touching the Scald. Independent tips it on the complexity, so gets the prize. All great beer, the winner is the consumer, etc etc.

Best Branding: Whiplash
Gorgeous surreal and abstract collage artwork next to clean type on a white background. 2D photos (especially mine) don't do the Whiplash cans justice. A shout out goes to Hopfully, who have an art commissioner on the payroll and some really engaging design as a result.

Best Pump Clip: Holden
I liked the beer much more than the novel, but this artwork from O Brother captured the essence of the character perfectly, I thought. Whiplash's recent Scaldy Split gets a very honourable mention: I like the literalism of the interpretation.

Best Bottle Label: Marooned
Bottle? The can is the canvas these days. Brightly coloured squiggly artwork, as popularised by the Scandinavian brewers in particular, has become the universal indication that the contents of this tin are worthy of your time. I love how Dead Centre has ignored all of the fashion and gone with a handsome and minimalist monochrome design. The beer is pretty decent too.

Best Irish Brewery: Trouble Brewing
Seems to me the lads in Kill have had a pretty good year (and not just because they finally got rid of that Guilfoyle fella, lol, bantz). 2017 began with the arrival of Ambush which has quickly become a staple wherever good beer is served. The introduction of cans, and the range they selected to put in them, expanded their packaged offer from supermarket standards to fancy-dan craft. And there was the aforementioned cask mild, and Parklife, and Get Schwifty, while the existence of Graffiti, Dark Arts and Vietnow continued unabated. Something sour and hoppy would be appreciated, but they have sufficient bases covered to earn this Golden Pint, I think.

Best Overseas Brewery: Brew By Numbers
They seem to have disappeared from Ireland, unfortunately, but kept popping up on my travels during the year. In 2017 I had the pleasure of various BBNo beers in Holland, Italy, as well as their Bermondsey tap rooms. 05|25 was my standout, redefining murky IPA for me, but they have plenty of other wonderful stuff too.

Best New Brewery Opening 2017: Hopfully
The year of Dublin brewing that I had been predicting since 2015 finally sort-of materialised. I had hopes of two new brewpubs in the city but had to make do with one, in the form of Urban Brewing. Hopfully gets my Golden Pint, however, for nailing it from day one. Chris made some brave choices in the recipes he has launched with, and this beetroot saison drinker is especially happy with them.

Pub/Bar of the Year: The Taphouse
Events, dear boy. The Taphouse celebrates... has been a marvellous feature of the local beer calendar, and the hospitality shown by Adam and his crew has been exceptional. Obvious but completely heartfelt shouts-out go to The Black Sheep and 57 The Headline, both still doing the thing they do brilliantly. And a nod to my international discoveries of the year, DeRat in Utrecht, Zum Franziskaner in Stockholm and LambicZoon in Milan.

Best New Pub/Bar Opening 2017: UnderDog
Oh you didn't think I'd forgotten it, did you? Even though it only opened in July I've possibly spent more time in UnderDog than any other pub this year. In my first post about it I opined that the real-time online beer list might encourage more beer specialists in Dublin to do the same. Lo and behold, several Galway Bay bars now publish a live list, while other pubs are using Find My Pint to do it. Keep it up, everyone.

Beer Festival of the Year: Toer de Geuze
It's somewhat arguable as to whether this counts as a festival, but the big marquee at Boon certainly felt like one. Also the fact that transport is organised by enthusiasts -- the Lambicstoempers -- really adds to the sense of festive merriment. So it's a festival. And, like the best festivals, affords attendees the opportunity to taste some of the world's truly great beers. I hope to be back in 2019 to finish the venues I missed.

Supermarket of the Year: Fresh, Smithfield
I thought SuperValu on Sundrive Road was going to edge it this time, but they dropped the ball towards the end of the year. They're also fighting a tough battle trying to interest my neighbourhood in better beer. Fresh, meanwhile, has done an amazing job, rivalling many an independent for selection, availability of new releases, and personal service. They've taken this Golden Pint almost every year since 2013 and deserve it now more than ever. A special hat-tip goes to drinks manager Carlos here.

Independent Retailer of the Year: DrinkStore
Same old, same old, though now with a new website and more visible pricing in-store. A place I shouldn't take for granted. I'm not sure whether I'm permitted to offer an honourable mention to Molloy's on Francis Street since it's part of a chain, but I'm going to anyway as I found it particularly good for finding things this year.

Online Retailer of the Year: Martin's of Fairview
More business as usual: I still don't buy beer on the Internet, although somebody recently bought me a six-pack of Little Fawn via Martin's (cheers Will!) and it arrived and was very nice. A Golden Pint for you.

Best Beer Book or Magazine: 20th Century Pub by Boak & Bailey
Another more-or-less default one, I'm afraid. Pocket Beer Book (aka Best Beers in North America) 3rd ed. by Beaumont and Webb was fun for dipping (disclosure: contains stuff by me), however B&B's exhaustively researched and entertainingly written history of the English pub from the Victorian gin palace to the modern craft bar was my favourite. Alas I have not yet got around to Pete Brown's Miracle Brew so it gets precluded from this category through no fault of its own.

Best Beer Blog or Website: The Beer Monopoly
The aforementioned Dr. Webb put me on to this site back in the spring. It offers a very handy monthly summation of the global goings-on in beer, particularly among the brewing giants. I make extensive use of it when compiling the EBCU news page, if you'd prefer a more subscribable news source.

Simon Johnson Award for Best Beer Twitterer: BreitTank
It's gone a little quiet lately, but this account has definitely been the beer commentary for the times we live in during 2017.

Best Brewery Website/Social media: Eight Degrees
Of the Irish breweries knocking out specials and one-offs on the regular, Eight Degrees appears to be the only one consistently publishing descriptions and vital statistics of each and every one. Yes it's the exact same reason I gave them this award in 2015, but it's still as important now. Everyone else, please try harder for the beer-buying nerds.

And on that begging note, thanks for reading throughout 2017 and have a happy New Year.

In the mix

Today it's the last of the Irish beers I tried during the Alltech Brews & Food festival in Dublin a couple of weeks ago. There really was something for everyone in the range presented.

Witbier fans were well served by the new one from Clonakilty Brewing, their third. They've called it Inchydoney Blond but, while it does have a touch of the phenols you find in Belgian blonde ale, it's only 4.5% ABV and has a lovely refreshing lemon edge, some herbal complexity and a touch of soft peach. It's easy-drinking and very refreshing with it.

For the next-level witbier enthusiast there was Something Witty, a collaboration between Rascals Brewing and Trouble. They've added ginger, lemongrass, black lime and pear into the recipe, and seemed to have got the full benefit of all of them. The aroma was a little off-putting: harshly woody, like the rough skin of a ginger root. Thankfully that doesn't follow through to the flavour which begins with a bright, sharp citrus note but then settles down to a gently exotic citrus perfume. There's a pleasant crunchy grain base as well, to remind you that despite all the decoration there's still a very decent well-made wheat beer under it all. You won't find much by way of ginger heat, however. I think I'd have liked more of that.

Trouble's other strange concoction was called Hard Candy. This time the base beer is a cream ale, which is not a style we see much of brewed in Ireland. In an attempt to make it taste like rhubarb-and-custard sweets, they've added rhubarb, vanilla and lactose. It doesn't really work. Yes, it's sweet, but it tastes more like a blancmange to me, all pink and gooey. If the rhubarb was supposed to add a balancing tartness it's definitely slacking on the job. The vanilla is very busy, however, giving it a strong candied popcorn aroma. Though only 4.88% ABV this beer is hard work to drink. Obviously it's designed as a fun novelty for festivals rather than an every-day beer, and I'm sure it will have its fans, perhaps among those who get dragged to beer festivals and are trying to make the best of it, but it wasn't for me.

The palate-cleanser after that was Foxes Rock Gluten Free Lager, which came my way via a media tasting hosted by Alltech's chief beer guy Gearóid Cahill. I was poised ready for the diacetyl onslaught that seems to have become the Station Works signature style, but it didn't arrive. The lager still isn't great — there's a bit of a farty aroma and a harshly metallic bitterness — but it's definitely not a total disaster. Hooray! I was chatting to one of the guys working at the Station Works R&D division and he said that, as well as some interesting experiments they're doing at the moment, the quality of their core beers has improved as well. I might even go back to drinking them voluntarily now.

Back down to the festival floor, and the unofficial centrepiece of the event was the long bar shared by north-western brewers The White Hag and Kinnegar. Naturally they had a collaboration beer on, a coffee, whiskey and oatmeal stout called The Hare and the Hag, and there was a real buzz around the room about it. Rightly so, in this punter's opinion. I was sceptical about the nitro dipense but it manages to harness all of the textural advantages of the gas while still holding on to masses of flavour. It's smooth and warming, with the coffee and whiskey notes clearly and distinctly pronounced. It's pretty sweet, though: the aroma has a whack of almost sickly banoffi and the whole thing is quite heavy going: it tastes and feels much stronger than 6.5% ABV. It's out now in 33cl bottles and I think that's about the right amount for an after-dinner snifter.

White Hag's other collaboration was a strange coupage they've produced in association with Armagh cider-maker MacIvor's. The story goes that a batch of MacIvor's cider became inadvertently infected with Brettanomyces rendering it unfit for use under the mainstream label, but also very interesting. White Hag stepped in with a simple golden ale brewed with its house souring culture and the two were combined in a 45%-55% ratio to create a 4.5% ABV "apple sour" called Silver Branch. The Brett makes its presence felt most in the aroma: it's all heavy farmyard funk and I braced myself for more of the same on tasting. But no! The tartness pulls a major switcheroo and takes over the flavour entirely, producing a sharply acidic kick at the front of the mouth and then an almost smooth clean quick finish. I think I'd like a bit more apple flavour, but it's very refreshing, and offers a distinctly different sour beer experience. A few months in a white wine barrel would do it the power of good.

A plethora of new beers were pouring at Independent's bar, not least among them Independent Coconut Porter, which was my pick of the whole festival. I drank a fair bit of it and was never not amazed that it's only 3.9% ABV. It has a gorgeously full body, supremely smooth and packed with rich dark chocolate flavours. Over the top of these, however, it simply roars coconut in all its unctuous greasy glory. It is not a subtle beer by any means but it really delivers what it says, and doesn't slam your blood alcohol level while it does it.

On a more restrained note, there was also Connemara Bock at Independent's stand. This one is 6.2% ABV and a clear dark copper colour. It's a particularly heavy example of the style, sticky of texture and full of apple, raisin and toffee notes, building to a kind of burnt brown sugar finish. I think you'd want to be a real bock purist to enjoy this one. It's very proficiently brewed, but just not for me.

Much more in my line was Currach Dubh, an oatmeal stout Independent made in collaboration with Italian brewery Opperbacco. It's 7.5% ABV and full of very old-fashioned stout flavours: a lot of bitter dry roast, rendered extra bitter by a green cabbagey hop hit. The oatmeal smooths everything out and it doesn't taste as strong as it is. Highly enjoyable, in a very serious and grown-up way.

The evening wears on and a festival-goer starts looking speculatively at the double-digit ABV tap badges. One of my closers was The Irish Giant, a barley wine by Black's of Kinsale which has been out for a while now but had escaped my notice. This was the barrel-aged version: the same strength as the original at 11% ABV but given time in white wine casks. I can't say I noticed much of a wine or oak character in the flavour, but it is delightfully smooth and rich. The aroma is a calorific mix of warm toffee and milk chocolate, and this comes through in the flavour as well, accompanied by a subtle hint of summer fruit and raisins. It manages that rare trick of being heavy and warming without getting cloying or boozy. Just the thing before heading out into a February night.

Tomorrow it's the last post of the festival, and I'll be looking at the foreign beers, plus those that arrived by less conventional means.