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.

Reintroductions

In late October, on a cool and clear Saturday afternoon, I found myself in Brussels for the third time this year. Not that I'm complaining. When a man is tired of Brussels he is tired of beer. Or hasn't done his beer research properly. Lunch was in order, nothing fancy, and I picked Manhattn's, an American-style burger joint alongside the Bourse.

Most of the beer here is supplied by Palm, and I had never had their flagship lager, Estaminet. I don't know if the ill-advised craze for Belgian pils has passed now, but one might have thought this is an archetype for the style. I don't think it is, though. Crisp corn is a hallmark of the likes of Stella and Maes; this one is floral and perfumey, following on from a wholesome porridgey aroma. It's estery, not dry, and far more like a Belgian blonde ale than a pils. Broadly that's a good thing but it doesn't make this a good beer. Ticking a ubiquitous beer off the to-do list is about the only satisfaction I got from it.

From there, down the street to Moeder Lambic Fontainas, where I hadn't set foot in a while. The seating has been rearranged, the rear upper deck has been lowered to become a ground-level lounge, and there's a brewery, though I'm told it mostly only makes the house soft drinks.

An IPA to start me off: Modern Mosaic, by Italians Ritual Lab. It's pale and completely clear, and has the delicious cantaloupe aroma which is exactly what I want from something advertising Mosaic. At 6.5% ABV it's heavy and sweet, but juicy too, with bags of assorted tropical fruit. The finish is clean, leaving a residual peach nectar and no real bitterness. It might have benefited from some, but otherwise this is a very fine expression of what the Mosaic hop can do when it's on form.

I couldn't leave without giving the Catalonian grape ale a whirl: Barrica Merlot, from Ales Agullons. It's pink, which is to be expected but isn't always the case with these. The aroma gives us a pleasant mix of cherry and raspberry, in keeping with the wine it's emulating, and there's a lovely seasoning of old oak spices. It's a little sticky, which I didn't expect given that it's only 5.5% ABV. The first thing that arrived in the flavour was a hard wax bitterness, not dissimilar to what you might get from a straight geuze. The sweet and juicy red grape takes a moment to arrive, but when it does, it lingers long, making this a rewarding slow sipper at a very approachable strength. Soft vanilla oak takes us out. I loved how slowly the flavour unfolds, and this unhurried complexity puts it on a par, for me, with the really good grape ales I've tasted from Italy and Belgium.

Brussels was not the destination. I had been invited to be one of the 90-odd (some extremely odd) judges at the Brussels Beer Challenge commercial beer competition. Despite the name, it moves around Belgium from year to year, and this year was being hosted in the eastern city of Turnhout. The actual judging bit was spread out over the following three mornings, but around it was built a quite wonderful social programme. That began with the pre-contest reception in the Typistenzaal, a beautiful art deco event space which was formerly part of a vast printworks which once took up much of the town's footprint.

A group of local brewers had been invited in to offer their wares for sampling. A couple were entirely new to me, including Den Berg, who had an also entirely new Brut IPA. It's pretty much exactly what you would expect one of these to be, being a bright clear yellow and tasting mostly dry with a hint of peach. They tend to finish abruptly and sometimes have a tang of sweat or onions. This one doesn't, offering instead a long finish of white grape. I've no idea if they plan to put it into regular production, but I think they should.

Gallico was the other new one, a client brewer branded on a classical theme. It owns the Taxandria series of beers, named after the Romans' word for the area. Hoppy Hunter is a dry-hopped lager, one with a nice shot of dankness to begin, but then an unwelcome plastic twang from its Sabro hops. Unlike many hop-forward modern lagers, they've gone big on the bitterness, to the point where it has more in common with a north German pilsner than an American pale ale. There's still a little bit of stone fruit hanging around, though it doesn't dovetail well with the bittering, or the plastic. Bit of a curate's egg, this one.

Next in sequence should have been Taxandria Copper Ale but I didn't get round to trying it on the night. Luckily, the brewers were responsive to my cheeky request for a take-home bottle. It is indeed a copper colour, though "amber" is the more usual beer term for it. Lots of head forms on pouring, then settles back to a thin skim. The aroma is warm and fruity, in a very Belgian way, and making no secret of its 8% ABV. But while it's all apple and raisin on the nose, the flavour is drier, with breadcrust, rye crackers and marmalade shred. The heat is still there, and the body matches it, being rounded and full. It has a lot in common with the multitude of Belgian golden ales, though I miss their cleanness in this deliberately dirtied-up job. It's fine. Belgium has plenty more similar to it.

They were warning people to leave Peaty Barrel to the end. This is a 9% ABV stout, including actual bourbon whisky in the recipe and then aged in Islay barrels. As one might expect, that has left it extremely peaty: turf and iodine for days. The stout isn't lost, however, adding a soft fudge sweetness behind it all. The downside is that, for the strength and style, it's a bit thin, accentuating the severity and preventing it from being the smooth and warm sipper I wanted it to be.

From just north of Turnhout, where Belgium meets the Netherlands, then meets Belgium then meets the Netherlands again, is De Dochter van de Korenaar, a brewery which is no stranger to these pages but not as regular as it was a decade ago. I've tended to find their rustic farmhouse beers more interesting than good, but was impressed by the newer ones.

That started with Nouveau Riche, a wheat beer with rosemary. And boy is it rosemary: you can actually feel the oils on your tongue. The wheat beer base is there to give it texture, but contributes little to the flavour, which is all savoury roast-lamb goodness. I fully recognise that this isn't a beer for everyone, but it suited me.

The mad stuff begins with L'Ensemble di Montalcino, a barley wine of 13% ABV, aged in the titular Italian wine barrels. It's quite hot, but maybe that's to be expected. Sometimes the oak and age smooths such things out; not here. The flavour is dominated by chocolate -- very much the dark and classy continental variety, rather than a Dairy Milk. Added to that, but much subtler, is a mature red grape or old red wine characteristic. The palate needs a little time to adjust to the booze, and the reward is a very enjoyable late-evening sipping beer when it does.

That leaves Rien Ne Va Plus, one of the oddest beers I've ever encountered, at least as regards its production process. This one, too, begins as a straightforward strong barley wine, but it has had even-stronger grain alcohol added in, and is then left to age in barrels for six whole years. They've called it a "malt-port" and it's enough to give any Irish Revenue officer nightmares.

But by golly it's worth doing. The end result is 19% ABV and retails for about €17 the 500ml bottle. It's an almost perfect recreation of the flavours of actual port, all smooth and vinous, with a solid but not intrusive kick from the fortification. The brewer said it was an experiment and he had no idea how it would turn out. Six years is a long time to wait for that, but I bet he thinks it was worthwhile now. Magnificent stuff, and a recommendation for anyone who's into the dark, boozy, barrelled-up side of the trade.

There were two more breweries in the room, but I'll be drinking the wares of both in later posts this week. Next, we pay one of them a visit.