End of the year content filling

Thank you to Alan for the title. And so, once again, it's time to take stock of the year in beer just gone, using an increasingly irrelevant template, last revised in 2013. Changing it now would be akin to re-making Dinner For One in colour HD -- completely missing the point. As usual, deliberations are aided by something from the fridge which is hopefully a bit special.

This year it's a Chardonnay barrel aged wild sour ale from Wide Street, called Réserve Spéciale. It's had two years in the casks and poured a bright golden, almost completely clear. The aroma certainly shows off the wine, and very much that Chablis Burgundy dry fruitiness. The oak is perfectly integrated into this, just like with good wine itself, and there's no tacked-on vanilla or butteriness. At only 5.4% ABV it's light-bodied and crisp, refreshing even, its flavour opening with an immediate kick of Golden Delicious apples, tart gooseberries, soft kiwi and real white grape. More typical oak vanilla arrives late, but doesn't last long, and it finishes on a light saltpetre spicing of which I would have liked more. The fruit is almost at the level of a grape ale, and I commend this in particular to my fellow lovers of that style. In the 75cl bottle it makes for an excellent special occasion beer, and ideal for proselytising the wonders of wild fermentation and barrel ageing. But there's only one special occasion on my agenda today. Time to get on with...

The Golden Pint Awards 2024

Best Irish Cask Beer: Hopkins & Hopkins Sitric
It's a beautiful pale ale, no question, but this award is in part for what it represents: it was the first beer to show up on the revived cask handpump at The Porterhouse on Parliament Street, and it has been a regular there ever since, though occasionally time-sharing with Lough Gill's beers. Neither The Porterhouse nor H&H needed to do this; it's totally out of keeping with trends in Irish pubs and beer, and I've never seen anyone but me order it. But it is massively appreciated by this drinker and adds a wonderful bit of diversity to a beer market that can feel a little samey betimes. A Golden Pint is the least I can do as a gesture of gratitude.

Best Irish Keg Beer: Otterbank Oíche Mhaith
It's probably a lot more common bottled than draught, and the keg which went on sale at UnderDog in February was doubtless a rarity. Nevertheless it counts, and I don't see any reason why 9.4% ABV vatted porters can't be sold on draught in Irish pubs as a matter of course. Everyone just needs to grow up a bit.

Best Irish Bottled Beer: Beoir Chorca Duibhne Leann Láidir
Honestly, the headline beer on this post is a contender, and I'm only having my second glass of it now. But on mature reflection, West Kerry's barrel aged rye porter was the Irish bottled beer that best delivered the goods for me this year. That was back in June, so finding it may be difficult at this stage, though I bet it didn't sell quickly and that there are still bottles to be had.

Best Irish Canned Beer: Third Barrel Hello Yes
Maybe it's because I'm quite jaded about IPAs in general, and that's what most canned Irish beers are these days, but it was a struggle to find a stand-out winner in this category. The one I picked is an authentic-tasting Czech style pilsner, though you'll have to wait until next week for my review. Take my word for it, however: cans of this one are still readily available and well worth picking up.

Best Overseas Draught Beer: Uiltje Pomme Pressure
I'd say I drank close to a thousand different beers in 2024, though only a handful of them taught me anything new. This dark barley wine aged in Calvados barrels had a very special flavour profile and one that has stuck in my memory as distinctive and delicious. That's enough to mark it out for an award.

Best Overseas Bottled Beer: Den Herberg Geus Genereus
After a sizeable hiatus, the Toer de Geuze happened for me again this year, and included plenty of beers and breweries I knew little about. The specification of this complex geuze caught my eye from the brewery's temporary festival bar and delivered absolutely all of the implied complexity. Up top, I said that I would have liked more spice in the Wide Street beer. This one had spice enough for both.

Best Overseas Canned Beer: Metalhead Metalworks
In the summer I went to Bulgaria, and while the beer I found there often wasn't the best, there were some stand-out moments. Those produced by a group of heavy metal fans on the edge of the Black Sea (possible beer/album name?) were among the most memorable, in a positive way. Metalworks is a barley wine with figs, dates and spices, but pulls off the trick of tasting balanced and integrated while still being a playful novelty beer. They compensated for the frustratingly tiny can with a huge and brilliant flavour. 

Best Collaboration Brew: Sofia Electric / Põhjala Väga Suur
And I'm as surprised as you are to find another Bulgarian beer at the races this year. In fact, this was originally picked for best overseas bottle, but with an absence of other suitable collaboration beers among the year's highlights, it made more sense to slot it in here. It's another complex barrel-aged barley wine which has been skilfully blended to create a unique drinking experience. Bulgarian brandy barrels get filed along with Calvados as ones to look out for. 

Best Overall Beer: Metalhead Metalworks
I look at the eight champion beers and try to think of the one that made the strongest impression on me; the one I can still taste and react to, just by reading its name, and that's the Metalheads of Burgas this year.

Best Branding: Kestemont
Back to the Toer de Geuze, and a visit to a brewery I'd never been to before, nor tried any of their beers. Kestemont has only been going since 2022 and doesn't try to pretend to be a vintage institution making old-timey beers. The branding is clean and modern, though also conjuring a more primitive age, for example the woodcut-like dashing hare on their Oude Geuze.

Best Pump Clip: Fat Cat House Ale
I remarked at the time that the house bitter at The Fat Cat in Sheffield is better than it needs to be, and the artwork on the clip is also a cut above. I don't know if it's based on a real cat or, if so, if said cat actually wears a monocle. I just enjoyed his stoic reaction to the shite Yorkshire weather, as seemingly rendered by Frank Miller. 

Best Bottle/Can Label: Lacada Out On A Shout
Lacada cans are always beautifully designed, but the one that stood out for me this year was a beer I've never had, a pale ale produced as a fund-raiser for the RNLI and making wonderful use of the beneficiary's particular turn of phrase. There's something about how it brings the reality of lifeboat work to the prospective beer purchaser that made it instantly memorable to me. Maybe I'll get to drink it at some point.

Best Irish Brewery: Galway Bay
While the company's pub end took something of a battering through 2024, the work done by the folks on the production side has been excellent. They've cornered the market in Irish-brewed Catharina sours and also rocked the dark and strong styles with Baltic porter, pastry stout, doppelbock and imperial porter of superb quality. And the schedule has been delightfully relentless, with new beers for me to try at The Black Sheep every few weeks. Throw in some excellent lager, which they did, and that's nearly everything I want a brewery to do.

Best Overseas Brewery: Dok
I had some fantastic beers at this Ghent brewpub when I visited last month, particularly the cherry and grape ale, and the black IPA. They narrowly missed out on the individual beer prizes so I'm happy to award this one for their output collectively. Their whole approach is cheerfully upbeat, and the creativity is matched by the quality of their beers. 

Best New Brewery Opening 2024: Smithfield Brewing
I mean, the beers aren't brilliant, being very much designed for mainstream pub-goers at the venues run by the brewery's owners. Rather, this award is for the project: the return of brewing to the old Dublin Brewing Company site in Dublin's north inner city. It looks like they're planning to open for visitors, being centrally located not far off the tourist trail with a bar just inside the entrance. And the old redbrick soap factory they're in is a lovely bit of Dublin's historic industrial architecture. In short, there's a lot of promise, and I hope to see it realised in 2025.

Pub/Bar of the Year: UnderDog
Ho hum, right? Where else would a thirsty person go for a quality selection, constant turnover, and an opportunity to rub shoulders with the cream of Dublin's beer geekery? UnderDog is the place and that's all there is to it, really.

Best New Pub/Bar Opening 2024: The 108
Strictly speaking this is a change of management rather than a new opening, but enough changed after Galway Bay vacated their Rathgar footprint that I'm counting it as a new opening. While there's a more mainstream appeal to the offer these days, there's still a good choice of quality beers (hello Kinnegar), and getting that out in the D6 boondocks is a rarity to be treasured. I'll throw in a most honourable mention for Bier Draak in Norwich which opened in May this year. It's an extension of the Sir Toby's market stall, but with worthwhile innovations such as a roof and a toilet. The beer list is impeccable.

Beer Festival of the Year: Borefts
It's been a while since De Molen's two-day shindig has troubled my Golden Pints, and nothing much has changed with it in a few years now. But it's my call, and I had a wonderful time at this year's gig. I'm sure the great weather had a lot to do with that, and the fact that I missed last year. It's still a bit overcrowded and some breweries are overly fond of making punters queue for timed special releases, but mostly it works brilliantly, the exhibitors are well chosen and the whole thing is a quality affair. I'm looking forward to next year already.

Supermarket of the Year: Lidl
This year, it's an award for reliability and dependability. Aldi had the turnover of beers, but I bought more in Lidl because they have such solid reliables on the shelves permanently: fridge-fillers like their Crafty Brewing IPA and American Brown Ale, but also modern classics including Little Fawn, Scraggy Bay and Rustbucket. Grabbing a handful for a weekend of unfussy drinking has become a regular habit.

Independent Retailer of the Year: Molloy's
Specifically this goes to the Francis Street branch which has done best at offering me beers that I didn't see anywhere else, and all without having to go outside the canals. Yes, your Martin's and your Redmond's and your Blackrock Cellars have better ranges, but for the convenience/price/selection criteria, Molloy's on Francis Street covers things best.

Online Retailer of the Year: Craft Central
And Captain Obvious's Retail Recommendations continue here. Just as UnderDog is the place where gobdaws like me sit in to drink, Craft Central is where we get our cans of whatever was just released or imported. I don't (often) touch the stupidly expensive ultra-rare imports, because haze is haze and they don't make it magically better in Illinois or wherever, but CC has a proper devotion to Irish beer and even stoops to selling Irish breweries' bottled beers on occasion. As well as this award, I present them with the encouragement to do more of that sort of thing.

Best Beer Book or Magazine: The Devil's in the Draught Lines
We have two books in contention this year, but I think the prize has to go to this wide-ranging, deep-diving and wonderfully person-centred account of women's place in the beer world, past and present, commissioned by CAMRA and written by our own Dr Christina Wade. It's a story that needed told and a document that will stand witness for future writers on the subject.

Best Beer Blog or Website: Belgian Smaak
My runner-up book was Breandán Kearney's Hidden Beers of Belgium, which is genuinely excellent, so I'm very happy to award this equally prestigious Golden Pint to Breandán for his website. Output isn't exactly quickfire but the quality is worth waiting for. Claire Bullen's delving under the skin of Brouwerij Boon, and Breandán's own telling of the Eylenbosch/Boerenerf saga, were literally my two favourite pieces of beer journalism I read this year.

Simon Johnson Award for Best Beer Twitterer: @articnead
I think Simon would have been quite happy for us to include Bluesky under the remit of this award now, and although I'm doing that, and Sinead does have an account on The Nice Place, this is still mostly a Twitter thing for probably the last time. Our winner does a marvellous mix of nordie snark, righteous outrage and old-school good-time bants, often within the same 280 characters, and generally gives proper vintage-era Twitter vibes, the way Bluesky is supposed to but doesn't. I very much doubt she reads this, so you can pass on the good news for me, Sean. Thanks.

Best Brewery Website/Social media: Ballykilcavan
And also in the fractured social media space, we have Ballykay shining a light of positivity, interesting happenings, more righteous outrage, and fleeces, into the swirling maelstrom that is today's beer internet. More Irish breweries should be telling us what they're up to and what's on their mind via a held up phone in a working brewhouse. Casting a new Cleo the spaniel will be a tough task, however.


Is that it? Have we only 25 categories? Cuh! I could have gone on all year. Congratulations to all 2024's deserving winners, and shame on you who got nothing: you've seen the bar, now get planning how you'll raise it. Me, I'm still very slowly getting through the tail end of 2024's Irish beer releases. You can expect opinions about them arriving here well into January. No rush with whatever you breweries have in store for us in 2025.

When in Plovdiv

I loved Plovdiv, the little city with a big history, right in the middle of Bulgaria. I wouldn't class it as an A-1 beer destination, however, although it has definitely made an effort.

The Kapana district has recently been developed as the cultural quarter, and they've done a better job of that than some other European cities I could name. In amongst the artisan shops, cocktail bars and restaurants are two specialty beer bars, back-to-back on parallel streets.

Hopium, much like the bars I visited in Sofia, is a tiny one-room, high-stooled establishment. It has connections, though, seemingly sharing an owner with the Sudden Death brewery in Germany and Plovdiv's own Pelta Brewing. I began with a beer from the former, a West Coast IPA named Grindhouse. At 7% ABV and a pure, clear amber colour, it meets the basic specs. The question of freshness raised its head again, as it had in Sofia: although this has been given a substantial dose of hops, it didn't have any zing or spark. Instead, there's a weighty funkiness, starting on an aroma of rotting fruit and proceeding to a resinous, leafy flavour. As the colour implied, it has been given a substantial malt base, but that doesn't offset the hop funk and only increases the difficulty level of drinking it. To top it off, a very slightly warm serving temperature on a very warm evening made it even more of a plod. I remember when the only American IPAs you could buy in Ireland were elderly imported bottles. This reminded me of those.

On a return visit, we went for something lighter. The clear golden beer on the right is Session India Pale Ale 1 from a Sofia-based contractor called Megamosh. Presumably all the good beer and brewery names were already taken. Anyway, it's pretty good: a lovely tropical aroma and a flavour with light and refreshing notes of melon and peach. That's it. There's a quick finish and it's maybe a little watery of body for 4.4% ABV, but it does what's needed for a session IPA on a warm afternoon.

The slightly hazy fellow next to it is a pale ale called Bar On, and is by Cometa. See the previous post for other beers by them. This is 5.1% ABV and has a little more complexity than its tablemate, but still shows the same level of basic decency. Here there's a base of tropical fruit, pineapple in particular, and then a light dusting of cinnamon spice. Those two elements work very nicely together. Exploring further, there's a harder mineral edge and a wisp of pear ester. Still, it tasted fresh and was very drinkable and refreshing. Job done again.

Around the corner is a slightly larger café bar arrangement with a bohemian beads-and-cushions vibe, called Kotka i Mishka ("Cat & Mouse"). They have their own range of beers, both bottled and draught. I went with the one named simply as Pale Ale on the hand-drawn tap badge, but which I think is bottled as (oddly) Ale Tap II. It's 4.5% ABV and mostly clear; a dark gold shade with a fine and lasting head. No quibble about serving temperature here: it arrived ice cold, which was appreciated. And that probably helped the flavour for a change, for while the aroma was a light and breezy melon effect, the flavour is seriously dank. It's that hard hop funk which begins as lime rind and proceeds into fried onion before building to old cheese. That took some adjusting to, and I give it a pass, but it's a bit extreme for a low-strength house beer.

Herself went for a Pelta beer which the artist-in-residence named as "Red Lager" on the badge but which does have a name: Zhega Li E? ("Is It Hot?" Huh?) And it's not red at all, but a muddy orange. The lack of redness also means there's not much malt character, only the grain and golden syrup of a decent pilsner, but without the hops, just a mild zinc-like mineral bitterness in the finish. It's very plain, in a way that something advertising itself as a twist on basic lager should not be.

As in Sofia, we finish drinking out with a beer in an excellent restaurant: Chisto i Prosto ("Clean and Simple") by the Trima i Dvama ("Three and Two") brewery, found on the menu at the Aylyakria restaurant, which is my top food recommendation for Plovdiv, in the unlikely event that you trust me on such things. But again like in Sofia, the beer quality wasn't up to the grub, and this is quite a plain blonde ale of 5% ABV, which I guess they're trying to make clear in the name. It's a hazy shade of yellow and quite dry, with a touch of pils-like grass in the aroma. That turns rough and earthy in the taste, finishing on a green spike of asparagus bitterness. There aren't any actual faults, but it still tastes like an unpolished home-brewed lager. 5/10, must try harder.

Elsewhere, on the edge of the city centre, is the Beertherapy beer shop, one which also stocks small-batch spirits, natural wines and meads. I picked up a handful of cans from the local and international selection.

It's tragically fussy of me to have been disappointed that I couldn't find any black IPA from Bulgarian breweries, and also that Tetrapod's Black Sea Tsunami conjured the concept sufficiently in its name for me to buy it. In keeping with the vast majority of the Bulgarian craft beers I found, it's a New England-style IPA: 6.5% ABV and one of the darker orange of examples that aren't quite made in accordance with high haze fashion. It's one of the better ones, though, mixing mandarin with vanilla and set on a softly pillowy texture to create a sweetly citric ice cream effect that's all dessert without any problematic vegetable or booze sideshows. This fine piece of work was contract brewed by the Burgas-based brewery Metalhead, and I discovered a couple more cans from them under their own brand.

Metalhead Metalworks Barleywine is a 13% ABV fellow, claiming figs, dates and spices. It's a pleasant amber colour once poured from the tiny tin. The aroma doesn't say much, just a broadly tannic dryness, and equally the mouthfeel is not that of a powerhouse strong beer, being light and surprisingly drinkable. The flavour is something else, however. They've combined the ingredients beautifully to create a rich and complex Christmas-cake effect, including the booze-infused sponge, the dark fruit pieces, and even the marzipan on top. The spicing -- unspecified but tasting like nutmeg and cinnamon to me -- are perfectly integrated into this, adding to the character but not feeling any way tacked-on. And while it doesn't taste hot, it does leave a lovely comforting warmth in the belly after swallowing. The teeny 25cl can is a shame, but maybe that means there's more of it to go around.

In the same format is Mind of God, which the lovely people of Metalhead have badged as a crème brûlée imperial stout. I didn't check the ingredients. I didn't have to. They have successfully managed to make this taste exactly like a crème brûlée. I deconstructed it as best I could, but it's that all the way down: vanilla as the centre, but real and creamy, not just a pail of essence; then a sweeter caramel smoothness that lingers on the palate, before a proper burnt brown sugar bite at the end. All that left me wondering if it counts as an imperial stout, and I get precious little of the things that make stout worthwhile, except where they're creamy and dessertish. Regardless, this is another piece of strong beer perfection from the Metalheads.

Both cans were in the €3-€4 range in Plovdiv's super-fancy beer nerd trap. I dreaded to think what they'd come out at back home. While I appreciated that it's mad money for small measures, the quality to justify it is present and correct. There were several more in the range and I deeply regret not buying them.

But we go onwards, pushing further east, to the edge of the Black Sea, to find out what sort of beer they have there.