Flashing the lights and sweeping up

And so we bring down the curtain on 2022 with the year's final post. It wasn't a bad one for me, all things considered, and I was able to get out and about more than in previous recent ones. This was the year beer festivals returned, and I was lucky enough to get to attend them in three different countries. While I tot up the particular highlights, I'm aided by something suitably strong and wintery.

Kinnegar has substantially re-jigged its sweet stout Winterland for its second outing. Now it's gone imperial, with the ABV up at 9% and coconut as the added ingredient. Is that Christmassy? Christmassy enough, I guess. It's thick in the glass, shimmering black under a tan coloured head. The aroma is sweetly floral, suggesting rosewater or cherry liqueur to me. They haven't gone overboard with the coconut, and before that arrives it's a roasty and bitter old-fashioned stout, perhaps more in the Foreign Extra genre than imperial. There's a slightly unctuous quality, giving an early impression of super-strong filter coffee and leaving that as residue in the finish. The coconut makes an appearance in the middle where it's very much dry and toasted rather than fresh and moist. This tones down the novelty factor and complements the dark grain well. Despite the slight severity of the bitterness this fulfils its role as a cuddly winter beer very nicely.

So I am positively aglow as I face into...

The Golden Pint Awards 2022

Best Irish Cask Beer: Brehon Black Hills
Options around Irish cask beer have been severely limited this year and it didn't feature at any of the Irish festivals I went to. On the plus side, JD Wetherspoon has a new commitment to Irish cask, making arrangements with Brehon and Dungarvan to have at least one of theirs on the handpumps at any given time. I've not yet seen Dungarvan's Black Rock stout in the wild, but have had the pleasure of Brehon's excellent Black Hills (aka Ulster Black) oatmeal stout and it really sings in this format. Do not pass it up if you see it.

Best Irish Keg Beer: Third Barrel Funk's Old Brother
This aged Brettanomyces-fermented red ale showed up at the Fidelty festival over the summer where it wowed me with its endlessly unfolding complexity.

Best Irish Bottled Beer: Land & Labour Bière de Rhubarbe
Ireland's spontaneous-fermentation guru would be claiming a few spots if this were a top ten instead of single winners. However, this was the one I thought most accomplished of the offerings so far, and was a highlight of the Mullingar Wild Beer Festival where there was plenty of competition.

Best Irish Canned Beer: O Brother Opus One
We have not been short of big stouts this year, with Lough Gill, Larkin's and Wicklow Wolf all releasing multiple versions. Opus One, a 12.5% ABV job given a gentle whiskey barrel treatment, was my favourite of the lot. Everything to enjoy about the style was ably demonstrated.

Best Overseas Draught Beer: Eik & Tid Barbar
When I'm compiling these, I try as much as possible not to refer to notes. I'm looking for the memorable ones. This Norwegian sour ale I found on tap at BXLBeerfest was one of the year's showstoppers for me. I don't remember exactly how it tasted, but I remember how it made me feel. A close second place goes to the mighty Keesmann Herren Pils, and drinking it at source in Bamberg was one of my year's beery achievements.

Best Overseas Bottled Beer: HORAL Oude Geuze Mega Blend (2021)
I've had a few vintages of this and they haven't all been brilliant. This one, however, was utterly magnificent, even by the standards of high-end oude geuze. A  nine-way collaboration seems like a recipe for watered-down mediocrity but instead they've made something better than I've had from any individual producer.

Best Overseas Canned Beer: Hoppin' Frog T.O.R.I.S. the Tyrant
It was fun going through all the B.O.R.I.S. variants back in February, and it isn't often that such a variant would outshine a classic original. T.O.R.I.S. did, though, simply by bigging up what was already there. Fair play.

Best Collaboration Brew: Otterbank/Third Barrel Time Will Tell
Like our Irish Keg winner, this was another heavy red ale given the Brett 'n' bugs treatment with spectacular results. It arrived in April as the first in a collaboration series which then went no further. Was the brew day that bad?

Best Overall Beer: HORAL Oude Geuze Mega Blend (2021)
The fact that I drank this in early January and I'm still thinking about it means it's the obvious candidate for the top prize. I have another bottle too, so you may be seeing it here again.

Best Branding: Larkin's
Brightly coloured cartoons of anthropomorphic animals aren't just a sound financial investment, they also look good on beer cans. I've been enjoying the most recent Larkin's rebrand, especially the action foxes on the imperial stouts.

Best Pump Clip: Ca' del Brado Cerbero
I went through my photos for the year and found very few pumpclip images. It seems cool bars and festivals don't use them much any more. I liked the shaggy purple doggo on this old ale from Emilia-Romagna's finest, however.

Best Bottle/Can Label: Whiplash Chimes
Second year in a row for Whiplash, which I doubt anyone familar with the brewery's can art will be surprised at. Chimes is a pale ale produced for the Bunsen chain of burger restaurants. "Let's put a burger on it, which is also a bunsen burner". Simple, a bit daft, but it amused me and that's what counts.




Best Irish Brewery: Galway Bay Brewery
I'd be prepared to give them this on foot of the return of Märzen To The Fire alone, but we also got new Two Hundred Fathoms, a West Coast IPA that actually means it, a bunch of stouts and some fun tinkering in the broad Belgian farmhouse genre.

Best Overseas Brewery: Moersleutel
The Dutch brewery graduated from one whose beers I enjoy when I find them to one I actively seek out. It was all imperial stouts until this year's Borefts Beer Festival where I tried a double IPA they'd made and it was at exactly the same high standard. They're occasionally available in Ireland, if you want to find out what the fuss is about.

Best New Brewery Opening 2022: Original 7
This was a tough one. 2022 has been much more about breweries closing than opening. We said goodbye to Metalman and St Mel's, and are watching with concern as Eight Degrees slips into a zombie half-life while the stupid multinational that acquired it tries to find a buyer. There have been rays of light, however, especially up north, but nothing that I've actually been able to drink. I haven't had any beers from Cork's Original 7 either, but I'm giving them the award for what they represent: the spirit of independent brewing after Molson Coors has come in and absolutely trashed the brand you built previously. Let's hope for something similar for Eight Degrees.

Pub/Bar of the Year: Foeders
It has taken me far too long to find my way to this geeky heaven in Amsterdam, very much one of those for-people-like-me bars. An excellent beer line-up and lovely service. If they gave the floor an occasional sweep it would be nearly perfect.

Best New Pub/Bar Opening 2022: UnderDog @ The Legal Eagle
"Will it / won't it" was the talk of Dublin's beer scene since version one shut up shop during the throes of the pandemic. Consequently there was proper elation when Dublin's only beer-first pub found a new home, where the winning formula of constantly rotating high end beers and first rate service has been reinstated with more legroom and actual windows. Most pleasing of all is that fact that the regulars are back and once again we have place to pull up a barstool and set the beer industry to rights with whomever is there to listen. There was a late contender for the title with the arrival of Fidelity on Queen Street just last week. More about what's going on there early in the new year.

Beer Festival of the Year: BXLBeerFest
So many great candidates but I'm picking this one because it was the most me of them. The range of beers and breweries wasn't the biggest, but there was a theme of wild and funky running through it which I wasn't expecting but valued hugely. The atmosphere was upbeat, the seating was plentiful and at the end you got to go drinking in Brussels. If all that seems like the kind of thing you might enjoy, stick it in your calendar for late August.

Supermarket of the Year: Polonez
There wasn't a whole lot of special interest beer at my usuals, but I did enjoy the occasional foray into the eastern European supermarket chain for exotic items, mostly of the lager variety.

Independent Retailer of the Year: Mace SCR
I usually go in for something specific and come out with a bag bursting at the seams. Serendipity, thy name is the Mace on the South Circular Road, at the back gate of James's Hospital.

Online Retailer of the Year: Craft Central
Can't argue with the numbers here: I bought more beer from Craft Central than anywhere else in 2022. The system is simply too easy: new beers arrive, they go up on the website, I order them and pick them up next time I'm passing. There's a slight premium to be paid for the convenience but it's very much worth it to me.

Best Beer Book or Magazine: none
I usually award this one by default for the single book I read during the year, but I don't even have that for 2022. A symptom of wider malaise in the beer publishing industry? Nope, just me being bad at reading.

Best Beer Blog or Website: BeerFoodTravel
April was the only month that Liam didn't have a new post for us, which counts as prolific in beer blogging these days. It's all great stuff too, meticulously researched and entertainingly written. This Golden Pint is very much a personal token of appreciation for the effort that goes in.

Simon Johnson Award for Best Beer Twitterer: @alldoomandgloom
In-jokes are the best jokes; the more specific and audience-tailored the better. Ross gets to them faster and better than I do. I don't know how much longer I'll still have a Johnson to give, but for now it's his.

Best Brewery Website/Social media: @PilotBeerUK
They last collected this one from me in 2016 but they're still at it and it never gets old. I don't get to drink their beer and daft tweets is the second-best thing a brewery can produce.

There. That'll do for 2022. I have a generalised bad feeling about what 2023 will bring to the small and independent brewing sector in Ireland and abroad so I'll sign off with a wish of good luck to all who may be affected.

A right bunch of prinks

This Saturday sees the first ever Mullingar Wild Beer Festival at Smiddy's Bar. It promises to be quite the event and I'm really looking forward to seeing, and tasting, what the brewers have brought. This post is a mood-setter, highlighting some recent beers from the headlining acts.

We're not starting wild, though: Wide Street has a straightforward Vienna lager, named in the most straightforward fashion, Vienna Lager. It's got Magnum and Saaz hops, Vienna malt, and you can argue with someone else about whether the crystal malt is required or not. The result is a murky ochre with a parchment-coloured head. It smells quite rough, with a sweet estery pear effect meeting red wine and chocolate rasins. Not what I was expecting from the style. The flavour is altogether cleaner, but the strange and slightly sharp red grape effect remains. There's a certain roasted crispness, but not of the rich melanoidin taste that ought to be the hallmark of something like this. I give it a cautious welcome. It's drinkable, and by golly it's interesting, but it doesn't fit my idea of anything that goes by the description of Vienna lager, and if you're going to name the beer after the style, it ought to.

The next one is even tamer. Middle Lane from Otterbank is one of their straight-up offerings brewed by Third Barrel. It's a pale ale of 4.4% ABV, dry hopped with Citra, plus some Chinook and Centennial. That sounds quite old-school but it's also hazy, and smells deliciously juicy. Befitting the strength, the body is quite light, on that cusp where some would say it's pleasingly drinkable; others that it's annoyingly thin. I'm going to both-sides that one. The flavour is fairly clean, dominated by lemon peel and grapefruit flesh, with a hint of vanilla and a touch of dry murky grit on the finish. It's not a beer which demands a lot of attention, but does live up to its name in incorporating aspects of both the east and west coast sub-styles. Clever.

Otterbank also got on board with the international campaign to support humanitarian aid for Ukraine by brewing a beetroot stout called Resist. I gave an account of Ballykilcavan's 8% ABV version recently here. Otterbank's is stronger still for extra resistance at 10.5% ABV. It's not quite black, being a very dark chocolate or bromine brown colour. I've drank a fair few beetroot beers in my time but never one where the vegetable add-on leaps out of the aroma as much as it does here, all raw and crunchy with a lacing of purple sweetness. The roasty stout side of the smell takes a secondary position. The flavour brings the roast out more: concentrated espresso and a vegetal bitterness which is entirely appropriate for the style but also dovetails neatly with the earthy beetroot. A tiny umami soy-sauce twang finishes it off. The strength is most apparent in the dense texture but there's no heat. In fact it's all rather subtle and balanced for a powerhouse novelty stout. I enjoyed it, and I enjoyed that it does good. Buy it if you see it.

Things get a wee bit wilder with the saison, Little Nelson, by Wide Street. The name comes from the New Zealand hop it uses, along with the fact it's only 3.7% ABV. It's a pale and fuzzy yellow colour with a fine froth on top. The aroma absolutely sings of Nelson Sauvin: cool and juicy white grape meeting a harder flinty bitterness. It's very light-bodied, even given the strength, but the hopping has been toned down accordingly for balance. The flavour offers a funky grassy foretaste, finishing dry and crisp. The saison side of the equation is muted, with only a mild earthiness giving away the style. Overall it's a tasty thirst-quencher and great vehicle for the hops. If Nelson Sauvin is a favourite of yours, don't miss this.

Now it's time to get the bugs out. First up is Idol Eyes from Wide Street, a golden ale fermented with mixed yeast varieties and aged in Chardonnay barrels. It is indeed brightly golden with lots of lambic-like spicing in the aroma, plus a serious eye-puckering acidity. That big sourness is the main feature, given prominence by an excessively low ABV of 4.8%. Opposite the sharp side there's the Chardonnay, luscious and juicy. You only get a flash of it, however, before the acid is back to scour your palate on the finish. I whine about beers like this when they're too strong, turning sweaty and cloying, but this goes too far in the opposite direction, with a little of the harshness often found in big-flavoured beers that lack the malt base to carry it. I can't be too cross with it, however, as it has lots of great sour and spicy features. Being low strength doesn't make it sessionable, however. One 75cl bottle was plenty.

Back to Otterbank for the finisher, a 9% ABV red ale called Time Will Tell, first in a new collaboration series, this one with -- oh surprise -- Third Barrel. Brettanomyces fermentation and wine barrel ageing all feature, as do Mosaic hops but I wasn't expecting too much of those. We're in Belgian oud bruin territory here, with the dark brown body and an aroma that has more than a hint of high-end balsamic vinegar about it. The texture is beautifully smooth, though with very little sign of the prodigious strength. That mutes the sourness somewhat, so instead of sharp cherry, or even vinegar, it's richly fruity, with raisin and plum plus a little chocolate and pudding. This works well as a dessert, where you might otherwise put port or a liqueur: smooth and calmly warming, and a nice place to finish. For now.

See you in Mullingar.