Time and tide

Another year over. Time to wrap up, take stock, award meaningless prizes for things I thought were good. It's year fifteen of this, and I may be the only person still keeping to the old ways, as set out by Mark Dredge and Andy Mogg in the heady year of 2009, and later revised. But before that, a tradition of my own: the beer I drink while making up my mind.

I acquired this bottle of Beer Hut's Ebbs & Flows on my visit to Bullhouse East in Belfast last month. It came with the Simon Boyle seal of approval, so if this goes horribly wrong it's all his fault. It's a mixed fermentation blonde ale, aged in barrels for a year and finishing at 6.7% ABV. The cork under the waxed cap was saturated in beer, which was worrying, but it looked well in the glass, the bright gold suggesting it hadn't been oxidised. The aroma says Golden Delicious apples to me. The flavour is greener and more acidic than that, into the Granny Smith zone. It's assertively sour, but still has enough malt density to prevent that being a full-on burn, and so it only hints at white spirit vinegar. That's pretty much all it has to say, really. The barrels in particular don't make much of a contribution: little wine character and no oak spices. It is at least clean, but I don't think I'll be distracted by the taste as I set to work on...

The Golden Pint Awards 2023

Best Irish Cask Beer: Land & Labour Geimhreadh
It means "Winter" but I drank it in April. This is Land & Labour's take on geuze, and it's a pretty accurate rendition. While one might not expect such things to be served on cask, as this was, one does not pass it by either. The same brewery's Bière de Rhubarbe runs it a close enough second to effectively share the award.

Best Irish Keg Beer: Whiplash Oxen
We've been blessed with a selection of delicious barley wines from Irish breweries this year, with Wicklow Wolf, Kinnegar and DOT all stepping up to the plate. My favourite of them, however, was this bourbon aged delight which appeared on draught at the brewery's bar in Dublin.

Best Irish Bottled Beer: Black Donkey Yes Marm
Land & Labour aren't the only ones getting the hang of wild yeast in Belgian-type recipes. Black Donkey had a number of wild fermented specials, of which this one, with a subtle hint of Seville orange, was my favourite. 

Best Irish Canned Beer: Lough Gill Blue Blue Sky
I'm surprising myself by putting a hazy IPA in as the winner of possibly the most competitive category. But this isn't about the cerebral analysis of the year's drinking, it's remembering the sheer impact of a load of fresh New Zealand hops, hitting the back of my nose as soon as the tab was popped. From first impressions onwards, the beer didn't disappoint: bright, fresh, fruity and just bitter enough. 

Best Overseas Draught Beer: The Kernel India Double Porter
This little keg found its way all the way from Bermondsey to celebrate the re-opening of UnderDog during the summer. It wasn't, it turned out, the beginning of a whole new wave of Kernel beers on draught in Ireland, but what's rare is beautiful, and this hits all the right chocolate-and-flowers notes for a 7.5% ABV porter. It's nice to read about historic beers, and this feels as though it's as close as we can get to drinking one.

Best Overseas Bottled Beer: De Dochter van de Korenaar Rien Ne Vas Plus
Another award based on my memory of our first encounter. I had no idea what to expect from this experimental take on the port wine method, but applied to barley wine. If you'd asked me, I would have said no way any beer would be the better for six years of barrel ageing. There's no disputing that here: six years made it amazing. Brewers rightly get a bit of stick for claiming to be daringly experimental when they tip a canister of blueberry syrup into a pale ale. This is what proper creativity looks like, and how it pays off.

Best Overseas Canned Beer: Hoppy Road Coco En Stock
This was a bit of a tricky one to award. My home drinking of overseas beers was fairly down this year in favour of drinking locally. Rummaging through the records, however, I did uncover this fantastic coconut imperial stout which I bought from the Hoppy Road brewery in Nancy.

Best Collaboration Brew: Wide Street / Land & Labour Many Hands
The funky lads are now co-located at Wide Street HQ in Longford, but before Land & Labour moved in, they created this blend of mixed culture beers from both sites, aged two years in Chardonnay casks. You can't tell that there are two different underlying beers, but you do get a massive amount of flavour complexity, spritzy and funky, all at once. It shows that they really know how to do the blending bit to maximum effect.

Best Overall Beer: Land & Labour Geimhreadh
I love that spontaneously-fermented beer of this quality exists in Ireland, and is perhaps even getting a little more commonplace. Land & Labour has certainly had a good year of beers, honing its ability to make future classics rather than throwing out endless new brews. Everything it does pays off in the glass.

Best Branding: Out of Office
It's such a strange theme, but is endlessly fascinating. The Belfast microbrewery has paper darts on its glassware and produced beers such as Pencil Pusher, NSFW and Kelly From Marketing. I'm curious how long they can keep it up, but I'll be continually entertained while they do. A very honorable mention goes to Hopfully for their fun and subversive can art.

Best Pump Clip: Brewster's Decadence
They continue to go out of fashion here, so I'm turning to the year's selection of English cask beer for this award. You need to like Art Nouveau to appreciate a Brewster's clip, and this one is no exception; the lounging lady expresses the beer's name in a most appropriately inappropriate way.

Best Bottle/Can Label: Canvas Bella
In almost a reverse of the previous one, I loved the simplicity of this: lots of white space and nature being left to do its thing. In a very small rendering, the artist has also managed to capture the body language of bossman Moss perfectly.



Best Irish Brewery: Black Donkey
I had a bit of chasing to do to find the Black Donkey specials this year, but I'm very glad I put the effort in. They are one of the leading lights of wild fermented Irish beer, though don't seem to get the same level of nerd attention as the others. If it's been a while since you tried their beer, I suggest you start getting caught up with the likes of Yes Marm, Hive Mind or Phraseology.

Best Overseas Brewery: Boon
I had the good fortune of spending a couple of days at the Belgian lambic brewery back in Spring, including its new tasting room. It's become very much part of the landscape when I'm in Belgium, as I was on three trips this year. There are lots of vintages and blends to explore and it's all good.

Best New Brewery Opening 2023: Mo Chara
Now here's a category that's of its time. New breweries aren't springing up every couple of weeks, as they were a decade ago. In fact, I don't have anything I can report on from a newly opened brewery. So I'll spin it sideways and allow a contractor in. Mo Chara, a bar in Dundalk, has done a range of collaboration beers in various styles with various Irish breweries, and now has a lager all of its own. They look like their hearts are in the right place, so they get the award.

Pub/Bar of the Year: 7 Stern
I made my third visit to this Vienna institution in January and was delighted that nothing has changed, from the bustling multi-level rooms to the wacky-for-the-1990s beer list (Chilli! Hemp!). I feel very at home here. If you want my favourite nerdy beer bar of the year, that was Taplokaal Gist in Utrecht.

Best New Pub/Bar Opening 2023: UnderDog
It shouldn't really be possible to win this two years in a row, but UnderDog completed its brief sojourn in The Legal Eagle and moved around the corner to North King Street. The offer is the same as it ever was: an ever-changing selection of interesting draught beers and good company. The bonus addition of lunchtime opening hours has done wonders for my ticking workload.

Beer Festival of the Year: Mullingar Wild Beer Festival
It was the second outing for this one, and while it may not have been bigger or better, it was just great to see it back. We have an excellent little scene around this sort of beer in Ireland now, and I love that it gets focused into a dedicated event once a year. May there be many more.

Supermarket of the Year: Aldi
Bit of a shock, I know. Normally you would go to the other one for beer things. Aldi has had some good special editions, however, and the DOT Spin Off Series is what tips it for them here.

Independent Retailer of the Year: Blackrock Cellar
I always come away with more than I went in for. The shop does a very good line in beers that I just don't see elsewhere, and was my primary stockist for those lovely Black Donkey ones. The closure of The Three Tun Tavern means I have less reason to be in Blackrock these days, but the Cellar means it's still worth a special trip now and again.

Online Retailer of the Year: Craft Central
I could just copy and paste from last year. Craft Central makes buying new release beers extremely easy and I still buy far and away the majority of mine there.

Best Beer Book or Magazine: Hop Glossy
Issue 3 of Radka's snazzy look at everything going on on the Irish beer scene landed last week. It's a magnificent endeavour, and done, we're told, just for the fun of it. Long may it continue.

Best Beer Blog or Website: Boak & Bailey and A Better Beer Blog
I mean, who's left? I'm jointly awarding this category for the specific activity of posting a weekly round-up of links to things going on in the beer world -- Alan on Thursdays, Boak & Bailey on Saturdays. They're a regular reminder that there's still life out there for those who care to look. Stan Hieronymus's Monday links are also appreciated though haven't been quite as regular.

Simon Johnson Award for Best Beer Twitterer: @BeerFoodTravel
Who's left, part 2. Liam's posts of beers, glassware, food and vinyl have made for cosy and comforting viewing through the year, so he takes my Johnson for the first time since 2019.

Best Brewery Website/Social media: Whiplash
The stream of new beers and revisited recipes from this lot has been phenomenal. Generally, they back it up with lots of background information about what they've produced, and where to get it. I'm rarely left wondering, which is the whole point of breweries being online.


And there you have it. Another year over. I can see the first of 2024's beer winking at me already. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for yet more of the same in The Beer Nut's forthcoming 20th year.

UpDog

It's not "UnderDog 3" or "New UnderDog" or anything else, it's just UnderDog, capital U, capital D, no space. Paddy is insistent. In late June, Dublin's only independent specialist beer bar took up residence on the corner of Capel Street and North King Street, a venue that in recent years has been host to O'Byrne's Beverage House, Beerhouse, and two food-led Galway Bay ventures, Paddle & Peel and Taco Libre. None of them managed to make much of a go of it, but fifth time's the charm.

There was certainly no shortage of patronage on opening night, and all tables in the long slim pub were full not long after 6. Although there was plentiful Irish beer, of course, I wetted the babby's head with some imports.

First of them was the Lapsang Souchong Lambic, the next in Oud Beersel's weird-for-the-sake-of-weird lambic series. As always, the first question is "Does it work?" and with this one I'm not sure. They certainly didn't skimp on the novelty ingredient; from the first taste it is powerfully, oppressively, smoky. As usual, though, the base lambic is assertive enough to shine through the add-on, still showing its earthy minerals and full-on sourness. A few sips in and one becomes accustomed to the smoke and it forms just another part of the beer's tangy complexity. I don't think it's an improvement, though: a little of what makes lambic enjoyable still gets covered up by the gimmick. Once again I find myself respecting the experiment but in no rush to drink the beer again.

We were spoilt with two beers from The Kernel and I went straight for the India Double Porter. I adore Kernel's dark beers and this 7.5%-er is an amplified version of the reasons for that. Dark chocolate meets heavy coffee roast with a strongly floral countermelody of lavender and rosewater. The dryness is almost ashen, but a thick body saves it, rendering it beautifully sumptuous. And that's it: no further notes. I can't imagine I would ever get bored of this beer.

So it was my dedication to you, dear reader, that moved me along to Kernel's Foeder Beer Nelson Sauvin. I wasn't at all sure what to expect from this one. What's a "foeder beer"? A yellow glassful arrived, smelling earthy and funky in the Belgian farmhouse way. So I guess it could be broadly classed as a saison. The base flavour certainly bears that out, with its straw-like dryness. On top of it, however, the hops are in full voice, piling in softly luscious white grape, lychee and peach nectar, plus a complementary peach-fuzz bitterness. It's interesting and fun, to the point where wondering what style it is seems churlish and unnecessary. There's lots going on here, and all at just 4.7% ABV, too.

And then there was Verdant. I finished night one on The First Note, a 5.2% ABV pale ale brewed in collaboration with The Tate Gallery. "A matrix of latitudinal and longitudinal lines, positions and flavours," they say. "Basic haze", say I. This yellow murk is low on fruit, heavy on vanilla and absolutely saturated in garlic flavours. There's nothing special, or different, or even particularly good. The hops aren't banging-fresh or any way juicy. "Join the dots, colour the gaps, dream the dreams...devour the world." My arse, Verdant.

And yet, two days later I was back in and drinking Verdant again. Did they do any better with the IPA called De-Bleaker? Not really. This is a very pale yellow, with little by way of aroma and quite a watery texture for 6.5% ABV. The flavours shows a little grapefruit, with the attendant pepper spice I get from grapefruit peel, before the fried onion and raw garlic storms onto the field of play, perhaps predictably. Another unimpressive showing, and a beer with very little complexity, from a country that can make beautifully complex beers at about half this strength.

One last try before Verdant and I go our separate ways. It's a double IPA called Light Through The Veins: 9% ABV and leaning towards €10 for a 33cl glass. Luckily, it's much better than the other two. While the aroma is quiet once again there's a tasty blend of coconut and pineapple in the foretaste. This flops back into vanilla and garlic eventually as it warms, but it's fun before that: tropical freshness and a comforting warmth. That said, it's nothing particularly different from hazy double IPAs I've had before, and I've had much better, not to mention cheaper. 

That brings my Verdant beer count to seven, and I should probably stop there as their way of doing things simply doesn't suit my palate. Now I just have to wait until the UnderDog menu screen offers me something else.