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.

An American beer booth in Dublin

It was a very pleasant surprise to learn, in the run up to the 2017 Irish Craft Beer Festival, that the Brewers Association from the US would be taking a stall there. It seems to be a thing they do at festivals around Europe now, promoting their members' beers to the export market. For me, and probably most of the people who bellied up to the bar over the three days, it was an opportunity to try lots of American beers that we don't normally get over here.

The BA's London agent Lotte was pouring, and her first recommendation was Saison aux Baies Amères: Chokecherry from Left Hand. This is 6.8% ABV and a beautiful polished copper shade. It's raspingly dry at first, turning gradually sweeter as notes of honeydew and cantaloupe begin to emerge. There's a seam of summer berries running through it as well, as one might expect, but also a lot of boozy heat, the sort that turns me off high-strength saisons. Dropping the strength a few points would do it the world of good.

Utah's Epic Brewing garnered quite a bit of attention from the standers-by and no beer lit up so many faces as Elder Brett, their 9.4% ABV Bretted saison with elderflower. It's a bright pale yellow colour with a big funky aroma: loud and blousey from the word go. The flavour is sharp at first, with a hot and minerally diesel quality. This calms down after the initial hit, becoming more like a fruity Gewürztraminer or even light fino sherry. A green note of chard or bok choy helps offset the elder sweetness while the Brett funk plays solidly all the way through. It's tough going to drink; definitely a sipper; but absolutely worth it. Even a small taster goes a long way here.

So I expected big things from Hopulent, Epic's IPA. It wasn't my sort of thing, however. 8% ABV and all thickly toffeeish. It's a vernacular I keep thinking has died out in American brewing, and then being surprised to find it's still out there. This one is classically constructed and flawless, I guess, but not for me. Onwards.

New Belgium's Voodoo Ranger IPA is in a similar vein but I enjoyed it more. It's a percentage point lighter, for one thing, and has a bigger fresh hop aroma, even if it does smell more of garlic than citrus fruit. While still thick and heavy, the flavour profile is clean and the malt and hop elements are distinct. There's a old world herbal quality  -- swatches of thyme and mint -- that I found quite charming and which softens what I thought was going to be a much brasher beer. This still isn't the sort of IPA I would go for by choice, but it's well made for what it is.

The inevitable fruit IPA slot goes to Guava Islander by Coronado. Another 7%-er, more allium in the aroma, and more toffee in the flavour as well, which was especially surprising since it's a very pale beer. The brewer's blurb promises an experience "bursting with tropical goodness" but that's not what I found. There's a strange, but not unpleasant, peppery character, but not much else to separate it from the previous heavy malt-laden US IPAs.

Before turning to the dark side, the oddness of Ska Brewing's Pink Vapor Stew. Beetroot, carrot, apple and ginger with Belma and Citra hops on a massively sour base. As one might expect there's only room for some of that to actually come through to the drinker and I found it was the apple and ginger making the most noise. The sourness was almost at vinegar levels too, which turned something that could have been a fun mix of fruit and spices into a much more serious proposal that required careful sipping so as not to strip one's tooth enamel completely. I think I like the idea of the recipe more than I enjoyed the rather extreme beer which resulted.

To the porters and stouts then, and Pay It Forward, a porter with cocoa from West Sixth Brewing in Kentucky. This is an old fashioned dark brown colour with a tall layer of foam on top. There's a gorgeous smell of Fry's Turkish Delight from it, and this complentary combination of rosewater and dark chocolate continues into the flavour. A dry roasted finish helps keep it from becoming too sweet. The cocoa has been applied carefully and judiciously in this one, helping bring out the porter's essentially porteriness instead of trying to add a new dimension and spoiling it. I liked this a lot.

An imperial stout comes next: Wrecking Ball by No-Li Brewhouse up in Washington state. This is a very substantial 9.5% ABV and packs a whole lot of lovely complexity in there: thick ristretto coffee, bitter liquorice, spicy cigars and a sticky liqueur or fortified wine fruitiness. And yet despite this it's worrying light of texture and exceedingly easy to drink. It's just as well there was only a small sample available: that could have got messy.

I had never encountered beer from St. Louis's O'Fallon Brewery, but was interested in its Smoke Porter when it passed my way. There's too much smoke in it, however. It smells like smoky bacon crisps while it tastes of kippers. At the same time it's also very sweet -- too sweet -- and I ended up with an impression of smoked candyfloss. I don't mind very smoky beers and think subtlety is generally over-rated where they're concerned, but this was just way too full-on and far-out for me.

Lotte didn't want to let me try O'Fallon Pumpkin Beer. Sure nobody really likes pumpkin beer, do they? This one was pretty good, however, offering a range of lovely autumnal flavours like maple, brown sugar and sweet potato, as well as the inevitable cinnamon and nutmeg, but not too much of them. The sweetness here is better suited to the beer. Sneerers gonna sneer, but this did everything I want from a pumpkin beer and I feel not an ounce of shame about it.

Cheers to Lottle and the BA crew, and indeed to Bruce, Carly and all the brewers for yet another entertaining festival. I couldn't stay longer because Beavertown's Extravaganza in London was looming, and I'll get to that shortly.