Bag o' cats

I made my second trip to Bristol this year in late October for a family event. With the wife accompanying me, that meant a fair amount of time in the feline-infested surrounds of The Bag o' Nails pub. Luckily the handpumps did some decent turnover during the weekend.

First for me was Livewire by Electric Bear, an IPA of 5.4%. It either wasn't well kept or, more likely, wasn't well made. The appearance was a nasty greyish orange and the flavour fuzzy and dreggy with a long acidic tang on the end. The centre of the flavour was a sweet strawberry note which wasn't unpleasant, but equally wasn't suited to something calling itself an IPA. Not a good start.

That beer wasn't meant to be a gamble, but I felt genuinely apprehensive about the Little Valley Dark Vale which accompanied it. This is described as a "vanilla porter" and is only 4.2% ABV. I braced myself for a thin syrupy mess. And it's not. Yes, there's a syrupy twang which is utterly unnecessary, but it's not too intense and doesn't overpower the proper beer elements. Those begin with the rich and roasty aroma and continue on a proper warm coffee flavour. You very much get what's advertised: a real English porter with dash of vanilla in it.

Keeping it sweet with a candy concoction from Bristol Beer Factory next, or so I thought. Sugar Plum Shake is a collaboration with Tiny Rebel. Ostensibly a pale ale, it's 5% ABV and a murky shade of orange. For all the lactose in it, it proved surprisingly savoury; heavy, chewy and bitter; spiced like a fruit pie. There's no clanging cloying sugar but a very pleasant real plum flavour, finishing quite cleanly with a tangy acidity reminiscent of Tilquin's Quetsche plum lambic. This wasn't at all what I expected and I think it works quite well. Sometimes it's worth ordering a beer you don't think you'll enjoy.

A stout next: Stanage, by Intrepid. I had to check and double check that it was advertised as just 4.5% ABV. It's a massive beast of a thing with a dense and wholesome dark malt base on which is placed an array of sharply bitter herbal and mineral flavours. I got tar and eucalyptus as the main ones but there's aquavit, mint and liquorice too. It's tough drinking but that doesn't matter as it's well worth savouring. Perfect winter fare, even on a sunny day with the change of seasons still some distance away.

Dagger Ale by Three Daggers brewery replaced one of the above around this point and I finished the session with one of them. It's pretty much a straight-down-the-line brown bitter. A little on the pale side, perhaps, and sweet with caramel notes rather than twiggy or vegetal. Plain fare, but mercifully completely clean. One of those beers I couldn't be fond of but which I'm sure has a receptive audience out there.

The pale and hazy boy next to it is Sonic from Dark Revolution. The brewery claims full-on American hop flavours at a more English 5.2% ABV. The lemon zest aroma at least begins to deliver on that promise but it falls away on tasting. Grainy biscuit becomes the centre of the flavour, and while there's some citric hop bitterness it's muted and faint. I see the brewery also sells it in cans, and that leaves me wondering if this is one of those hop-forward beers that doesn't translate well to cask. I think it might be.

There was time for a couple more beers at the Bag before we left on Sunday. Another hazy yellow session IPA starts us off: BS2 by Croft. Here they've done the hops right for cask or whatever and it's packed with lemony zing. It's a little thin, even for 4% ABV, but the bitterness never turns harsh as can sometimes happen. The haze brings yeast to the flavour profile too, and here it's a delicious seasoning spice and certainly not a flaw. Untraditional for sure, but very tasty.

I don't know if it was herbal stout season at the pub or something but there was another one on that afternoon: 4T's Stout from the brewery of the same name. This one begins on a quite sharp note of toasty roast before mellowing to sweet milk chocolate later. The herbal quality is gentler this time, like an old-fashioned throat lozenge. The ABV is a full 5% which gives it a filling smoothness.  Overall it's balanced and mellow drinking, ideal for a relaxing Sunday afternoon when nobody has to run to the airport... Oh no! Is that the time?

There was one more beer I wanted to try before leaving, and I confess to not giving it the full consideration it deserved. I spotted quite late that the line of available bottles included Tynt Meadow, the unique English Trappist ale launched with great fanfare back in the summer. It's 7.4% ABV and a brackish red-brown colour. A wholesome fruitcake aroma begins the experience, and I know that the producers have tried to avoid tagging a monastic style onto it but it really tasted like a dubbel or quadrupel to me. More like the latter, actually, despite the strength, with a quite intense bitterness, combining liquorice, orange peel and dark chocolate. There's plenty of sweet malt to balance this, however, and it finishes up luxurious and warming: just the sort of thing you go to a dark Trappist beer for.

Those pub visits bookended the weekend. And in between...

Time gentlemen

It's hard to believe we're already on year five of Messrs Mogg and Dredge's annual round-robin beer awards thingy, The Golden Pints. As with all regular awards programmes, it's hard work striking a balance between the same parties getting the nod every year and the pass-the-parcel effect where taking the gold is just a matter of waiting until everyone else has already had it. In past years I've tried to avoid these pitfalls but it has reached the point where it's making the whole thing awkward, so for 2013 I'm paying no attention at all to what has gone before and writing down my gut instinct answers to this year's categories.

To assist me in composing my justifications for each winner I'm joined by a large bottle of Kerkom Winterkoninkske, which has been sitting in my stash for a couple of  years now, awaiting its moment to shine. At 13% ABV it's strictly for the darkest depths of winter, and the stiff rubber cork really makes you work for your beer. When I eventually got it open, what poured out is a flat and slightly syrupy-looking dense black beer, briefly forming a loose head which disappears before I can even raise the glass. There's a savoury, autolytic quality to the aroma: the teriyaki glaze effect familiar to fans of Samuel Adams Triple Bock. It's all about chocolate in the flavour, of the top-notch milk variety, accentuated by the silky smooth texture. There's alcoholic heat and no rough edges at all, just a tiny metallic ping from a molasses taste at the finish. For all its strength and sophisticated presentation it's not actually all that complex, but it's just the liqueur substitute I'm after for some end-of-year musings.

The Golden Pint Awards 2013

Best Irish Cask Beer: Moonbeam.
A tough one to kick off. I loved Hilden Number Four when I found it at the Irish Craft Beer & Cider Festival: it's a beer that showcases the richness and depth of flavour that comes with cask dispense. But then so does Moonbeam, and this dark ale by Metalman does it with hops too. Ordering a repeat pint at the Bull & Castle is a rarity for me, but sinkable Moonbeam made me do it, so is my Irish cask choice for 2013.

Best Irish Keg Beer: Of Foam and Fury
Well duh! Galway Bay's 8.5% ABV hop explosion is the beer everyone's been talking about, because it's the beer everyone's been waiting for. I've just got over the novelty at this stage and am actually able to order other things in Galway Bay pubs, but it was a real desert island job for a while there: all the complex subtlety and all the loud brashness you need from a beer, in a single glass.

Best Irish Bottled or Canned Beer: Amber Ella
This pale ale from Eight Degrees impressed at the ICBCF in September when it made its draught début but I didn't go chasing the bottled version until it popped up on special at 57 The Headline. All that mango and mandarin  freshness is still present in the bottle and makes for a magnificently invigorating zing-filled experience.

Best Overseas Draught Beer: Edelstoff
A big shout-out for Sharp's Panzerfaust here, which quietly appeared at the Franciscan Well Easter Beer Festival but hasn't been seen since, alas. But while that's a fun novelty, my top foreign draught experience this year was an old favourite: the inhaleably smooth Edelstoff at the Augustiner Keller in Munich last March. Great beer enhanced by excellent company in wonderful surrounds.

Best Overseas Bottled or Canned Beer: Quetsche
Having missed it at the Zythos beer festival I was overjoyed to find Tilquin's plum lambic afterwards in Moeder Lambic Fontainas. The way it stimulates one's salivary glands to create a genuine taste explosion brought me back to my early lambic experiences and a reminder of why this sort of beer is for me. That it's the dearest beer I've ever had (€30 a 75cl bottle) is neither here or there.

Best Collaboration Brew: Adnams Supremely Self-Conscious
This was also a contender for Best Overseas Draught, though it's hard to do any sort of meaningful comparison between it and Edelstoff. A session-strength dark ale brewed at Adnams in collaboration with Stone and served at JD Wetherspoon in the autumn. Crazily hoppy yet exceptionally drinkable, Moonbeam turned up to 11; a masterpiece.

Best Overall Beer: Quetsche
Flavour, aroma and texture are all well and good, but for its sheer physiological impact, my favourite beer of 2013 was Tilquin Quetsche.

Best Branding, Pumpclip or Label: Otterbank Brewing
I was about to troop after everyone else who nominated Partizan -- their graphics are endlessly entertaining -- but a late Irish entrant shades it for me. This Golden Pint goes to new gypsy brewing operation Otterbank, and their all-business mascot, designed by Twisted Doodles (aka Maria). I wear ties that way too.

Best Irish Brewery: Eight Degrees
Where output, innovation and distribution are concerned, Eight Degrees were first rate this year, and the quality of their products was pretty damn good too. Putting out three simultaneous winter seasonals was a ballsy move, and that deserves credit.

Best Overseas Brewery: The Kernel
2013 was the year I finally "got" hoppy Kernel beer. I don't know if they just happened to be using varieties I like when I drank them, or if it's personal lupulin threshold shift going on, but I really enjoyed the Kernel IPAs I had this year; their dark beers are as consistently brilliant as always; and then there's London Sour.

Best New Brewery Opening 2013: JW Sweetman
Technically I think this was a late 2012 opening, but it was definitely 2013 when Dublin's one and only brewpub made its presence felt. First and foremost, the product quality under brewmaster Rob has been exceptional. In a Dublin pub scene where prices appear to be spiralling insanely upwards it offers easily the best value around. And there's a real sense that the serving staff actually give a shit about the product, which was rarely the case in its previous incarnation. So three cheers for Barry, Dave, Rob and all the team at JWS, and somebody please steal their business model: Dublin needs at least three more of these.

Pub/Bar of the Year: The Bull & Castle
There are many contenders for this, but I can't go past the Bull & Castle. Literally, in fact. The range of Irish beers and the turnover of specials and seasonals has been phenomenal. It remains the best venue to get a handle on what's happening on the national scene.

Best New Pub/Bar Opening 2013: 57 The Headline
And hot on the B&C's heels is Geoff's new venture on Leonard's Corner. A solid core of quality beers plus ample space given over to rotationals, with a suburban local feel which is conveniently in my end of town. Having only opened in October it's still finding its feet so we can expect the offer to improve even further in 2014.

Best City for Beer in Ireland: Kilkenny
Yes, I'm overlooking Dublin, Cork and Belfast -- all of which I enjoyed drinking in this year. But the most fun was a summer weekend in the Marble City, centred on the fabulous Brewery Corner pub.

Beer Festival of the Year: Borefts
BräuKunst Live! in Munich was certainly educational, but my other half didn't attend, which immediately means it wasn't as enjoyable as it could have been. Borefts, then, takes the prize for beer quality, atmosphere and company -- plus a greatly enhanced food offer this year.

Supermarket of the Year: Fresh, Smithfield Square, Dublin 7
They accidentally underpriced a shipment of Moor beers this year, and Alex didn't manage to snaffle all of them before I got in.

Independent Retailer of the Year: DrinkStore
I actually have to make a concerted, conscious effort to go to other off licences now. DrinkStore is there, and has everything. Job done. They're the reason I'm not giving out a Golden Pint for online retailer of the year, and if I were they'd probably get that too.

Best Beer Book or Magazine: None
Books? Sure haven't we the Internet?

Best Beer Blog or Website: Zak Avery.
Because this.

Best Beer App: Janetter
It's just a general-purpose Twitter client, but it has a mute-by-app function which means I can switch off other people's Untappd updates. This has massively enhanced the quality of my Twitter experience.

Simon Johnson Award for Best Beer Twitterer: @Thirsty_Pilgrim
So many great Twitterers out there, local and international, but I'm a particular fan of the window on the world of beer revealed by Joe.

Best Brewery Website/Social media: Galway Bay Brewery
A slick new website, and regular Twitter updates from both owner and head brewer. Real engagement too -- not just an endless retweeting of praise. If your business Twitter account is in the habit of retweeting other people saying nice things about you: Fucking. Stop.

Food and Beer Pairing of the Year: Bourbon Barrel Ale with Bellingham Blue
The beer's pretty poor and the massive sweet oak totally overpowered the excellent steak it was supposed to be paired with at Alltech's reception launching their festival next February. But the acidity of the cheese really put manners on it.

A big thanks to everyone who nominated me for Golden Pints. There'll be more drinking beers and then writing down what they taste like next year.

Leuven large

A return to Belgium was top of my to-do list for this year. It's been so long they've probably changed all the beers in my absence. Certainly there was no shortage of new things to try. Most of the weekend was spent in Leuven, the university town near Brussels playing host to both the Zythos Beer Festival and the EBCU spring meeting. More on the the former later.

I arrived into town on a sweltering hot afternoon and started with a leisurely stroll from the station to the town centre. I'd been here once before, 11 years ago, and the Domus brewpub was among the first I ever drank in. It hadn't changed: still a slightly rambly multi-level bar, all bare brick and bric-à-brac, with the brewery in an adjacent building. A friendly waiter showed me to a table I could plonk myself at and I picked the unfiltered pils from the menu, a beer somebody chose to call Con Domus and nobody chose to stop them.

At first I thought it was a mistake: the beer that arrived was perfectly clear, the clear gold of many an industrial lager. The flavour was a lot more interesting, however: sweet at first, then suddenly bitter, reminding me of dipping a finger into hopped malt extract. A simple, decent beer, and bang on the money after a long journey on a warm day.

At this point I spotted the three-beer tasting tray on the menu and opted for that, confirming for myself that it was the house pils I'd just had, not a macro alternative. The other regular beer they make is Nostra Domus, a hazy dark orange ale with lots of very typical Belgian yeast esters. The carbonation is low and there's a little toffee but not much else. Another simple beer but pleasantly full-flavoured. Too many mass-market Belgian amber ales have an unpleasant watery core, but I have no such criticism to make of this.

The seizoen on the day was a Blond, though I thought it was a witbier the first I saw it, as it was the exact same hazy yellow colour. An immediate kick of nutmeg spice begins things, followed by a little bit of banana and a growing warmth from the alcoholic vapours. Eventually it just got a little too heavy to enjoy properly and had me hankering for the cleanliness of the pils again.

The designated meeting point for EBCU delegates was M-Café, attached to the city museum. The selection here was certainly a cut above the normal museum café, with five non-macro beers on tap and dozens of bottled options. Special of the day was a comparison tray of St Bernardus Abt. 12 and Westvleteren 12 for €8. You wouldn't get that in Collins Barracks. I ordered a Taras Boulba while I made up my mind what to have next and, occasionally, socialise with people.

A popular option among the group was Hanssens Oude Gueuze, a brand I was completely unfamiliar with, so that's what I had next. It's a fun little lambic, cloudy orange and with the full bricks-and-gunpowder aroma but totally smooth on the palate; all its sharp edges have been rounded off with time. I got a shock when I saw Ommegang on the blackboard, but this isn't from Duvel-Moortgat's New York operation, it's by Brouwerij Haacht, one of their Keizer Karel series. There's not much going on in it: it's a middle-of-the-road 8% ABV blonde ale with some nice herbal bitterness but then a nasty contrast of dry fizziness and alcoholic burn. Time to see what's on tap.

Taking a chance on Caulier Special Extra, I found it to be a lovely light sessioner. Just 4.3% ABV, a hazy pale gold and with wonderful jasmine perfume flavours. Very clean and sinkable. The tap next to it intrigued me: Alpaïde, from Nieuwhuys, an independent brewery in the town of Hoegaarden. Well done them. It's a rich and fruity 9% ABV dark ale, brimming with the raisin and fig notes typical of top-notch dubbel.

There's an Alpaïde Blond too, another standard strong one which is decent, unfussy and miles better than the Ommegang. I found it in Metafoor, a relaxed and hip-but-not-too-hip café bar not far from the main city square which my fellow Irish delegate John and I visited on the Friday of the trip. We came there from Wiering, another multilevel bar one street away, where I'd had yet another blond ale, Wolf 7, which has some very nice candy and meadow blossom flavours going on.

Once started, a series has to be continued, so on to Wolf 8: a decent dubbel with a fair whack of prune to it but not a whole lot else going on and far far too fizzy for my liking.

A wrong turn on Friday night brought us into a student dive bar where we sat at the back and pretended to fit in. From the taps under the DJ box there was Hector Tripel, an interesting mix of herbs, sugary sweetness and boozy heat. Quite easy drinking so perfect for when you just need to drink up and get out. Last port of call that evening was De Blauwe Kater, a wonderfully relaxed watering hole hidden up a secluded alley. I took the opportunity to make some notes on the legendary Saison Dupont, though it's hard to say more than: it's straight up what saison is supposed to be -- dry, clean with just a little gunpowder naughtiness. This, combined with the proprietress's complete lack of hurry to close up, made that a late evening.

Saturday was ZBF, after which my palate could do nothing but plonk itself on a stool back at Metafoor and drain glass after glass of Rodenbach. On Sunday we went to Brussels and my prime target here was Moeder Lambic Fontainas. Traffic was slow in the long ultra-modern pub, and the beer list surprisingly short by Belgian standards -- only a few dozen options -- but all obviously hand picked. Several of the draught specials were Italian and I opened with X-Ray by Brewfist. This imperial porter is 8.5% ABV, pouring jet black with a creamy ivory head. It's fantastically smooth, offering all the roasted coffee and dark chocolate you want, plus a cheeky hop nip just at the tail end. The perfect Sunday brunch in a glass.

The house beer is Band of Brothers by De La Senne, with quite wonderful artwork, as usual. This was being served from cask, the first time I've seen something other than lambic served this way in Belgium. It's a pale and hazy yellow-orange, with a touch of yeasty sharpness in the aroma. None of that on tasting however, mixing a beautiful fresh apricot character with some lip-smacking thirst-quenching tannins. Overall, a very pleasant blend of the good parts of Belgian blond and English bitter.

The main event for me was Tilquin Quetsche. I hadn't heard of this until the day before, when it sold out rapidly at ZBF. It's a plum lambic from Belgium's newest blendery and pours a happy shade of blushing pink. The aroma is pure barnyard with perhaps a hint of raisin fruitiness behind it. The first thing I got on tasting it was wood, followed by a dash of plum and then a massive salivatory rush as the sour finish kicks in. The fruit and the funk give the whole sensation of eating plums round the back of a cattle shed, which is noteworthy in itself, but I've never encountered a beer that has made my mouth water like this. I look forward to what they come up with next at Tilquin.

And there's another from them and more Belgian breweries coming up in the next post, covering Belgium's biggest annual festival of beer.