Archive for the 'Beer News' category
 UPDATE! It was pointed out by the beer monkey that I missed some Golden Pint 2012 responses at Andy Mogg’s Beer Reviews. Since Andy is one of the coordinators of the Golden Pints, this was a large oversight on my part. Fortunately there were only a few entries not in Mark’s post (the one I originally used), so the re-tally was pretty quick. The four missed entries helped change some category winners, and those changes have been made below, along with uploading a new spreadsheet.
I decided to tally up the Golden Pints 2012 responses on Pencil and Spoon to see if there were any category winners or just a hodgepodge of single voted entries. Amazingly enough almost every category, minus “Food and Beer Pairing of the Year” and the “Open Category”, had a “winner” with multiple votes for it. Before I get to the results a quick explanation on the tallying. There were four main ways people voted: single entry per category, a first place with honourable mentions per category, a ranking of entries per category, unranked – multiple entries per category. “First votes” were given to single entries, and entries ranked first. “Second votes” were given to any honorable mention (if someone had four honourable mentions in a category, each one was considered a “second vote”). Second votes were also given to any unranked – multiple entry. This will hopefully make a little more sense when you read the results, so lets get to it.
With thousands of beers to choose from (and tens of thousands when considering the overseas categories) I was amazed even two people voted for the same beer, nonetheless many people voting for the same beer. For Best UK Draught Beer the winner was is a tie between two Magic Rock beers: High Wire and Bearded Lady Bourbon (23 first). The other beers that came close were Greene King 5X (2 first), and Magic Rock Cannonball (2 first). Next comes Best UK Bottled or Canned Beer with a two-way first place tie with Oakham Green Devil IPA (4 first, 1 second) and Buxton Imperial Black (4 first, 1 second). Thornbridge Kipling came in a close second with three (3) first votes, [update] and third went to Kernel Table Beer (2 first, 3 second)[update].
Moving to the Overseas categories, Best Draught Beer was claimed by Ska Brewing Modus Hoperandi garnering three (3) first votes and one (1) second vote. In the Overseas Bottled or Canned Beer there was a two way tie for first with both The Alchemist Heady Topper and Brasserie d’Achouffe ‘Houblon Chouffe’ garnering two (2) first votes. Coming in second and third were Russian River Pliny the Elder (1 first, 2 second) and Firestone Walker – Double Jack (1 first, 1 second).
Best Overall Beer was claimed by another Magic Rock beer, Cannonball received two (2) first votes and one (1) second vote. Tied for a close second was Buxton Axe Edge and Oakham Green Devil IPA both with two (2) first votes. Rounding out the pack was Thornbridge Halycon (1 first, 1 second).
Best Pumpclip or Label is next and was claimed by Rukus Brewing Hoptimus Prime (2 first). Breweries’ whose artwork was regarded highly by the voters: Redwillow Brewery (2 first, 1 second); Magic Rock (1 first, 1 second); Moor (2 second); Half Acre (2 second).
Even though Magic Rock claimed best UK Draught Beer and Best Overall Beer it did not even place in the Best UK Brewery category. Buxton came out on top with three (3) first, two (2) seconds and one (1) third votes. Close behind were Hawkshead (23 first, 2 second), Brodie’s (3 first, 1 second), Summer Wine (3 first, 1 second), and Kernel (2 first, 4 second).
Best Overseas Brewery was grabbed by Stone (4 first) though Mikkeller was right behind with three (3) first votes and four (4) seconds.
Best Overseas Brewery was grabbed by Mikkeller (4 first, 4 second) though Stone was right behind with four (4) first votes.
The winner of the Pub/Bar of the Year was a pub that at first I did not think was actually a pub (you Brits and your crazy pub names) Friends of Ham (2 3 first, 2 second). Other pubs/bars of note: North Bar (1 first, 2 second), Earl of Essex (1 first, 1 second), Euston Tap (1 first, 1 second), and Freetrade (1 first, 1 second, 1 third). Another great place to drink beers is the GBBF with five (5) first votes and claiming tops in the Beer Festival of the Year category. Indyman (4 first, 3 second) and Borefts (3 first, 2 second) also seem like swell times.
Next up, Supermarket of the Year. For those a) able to purchase beer in supermarkets and b) not morally opposed to purchasing beer in a supermarket, Waitrose was the clear favorite racking up an impressive thirteen (13) fourteen (14) first votes, and leaving all the others in the dust. If you are not picking the beer up at a supermarket, Beer Ritz is your best bet, winning Independent Retailer of the Year with six eight first votes (though I was happy to learn there is a nice bottle shop near my old stomping grounds of Old Street, London). For the Online Retailer of the Year Beermerchants can not be beat with a solid ten (10) first votes.
Reading about beer encompasses the next three categories with Melissa Cole’s Let Me Tell You about Beer (5 votes) taking Best Beer Book or Magazine. Best Beer Blog or Website handily goes to Boak and Bailey with twelve (12) first votes (second highest first vote count of all categories, only being bested by Waitrose’s 13 in the Supermarket category). If Twitter is your thing, and it certainly is not for all voters, @Broadfordbrewer (4 5 first) is certainly worth following, claiming Best Beer Twitterer. Might as well follow @simonhjohnson (4 first) and @filrd (3 first), coming in a close second and third.
The last category with any real winner is Best Online Brewery Presence and that goes to everyone’s brewery they love to hate, Brewdog with seven (7) nine (9) first and one (1) second votes. Hardknott garnered a pretty respectable second with four (4) first and one (1) second votes.
Though there was no “winner” in the Food and Beer Pairing of the Year a general theme was everyday food (burgers, chips/fries, pizza, fried chicken, etc) rather then haute cuisine.
As for “In 2013 I’d most like to…” and the “Open Category“, you’ll just have to read those for yourself. Speaking of which, I am going to attach the spreadsheet I used to tally everything up (copy/pasted from posts with “explanations” removed) so if you want to do your own tally or look at the information in a different way (what was the most voted upon style? average abv? etc) have at it: Golden Pints 2012 Tally
Author: Dave
Categories: Beer News
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Better late then never is my motto, or at least it is for this post. Andy Mogg and Mark Dredge have been organizing the Golden Pints for the past few years and this time I thought I would contribute… eventually. Though the Golden Pints are UK focused, a little editing of the categories and I’m good to go.
Best American Draught Beer
Have not been to many bars this past year, but of the few times I did Jack’s Abby Jabby Brau was ordered a bunch of times.
Best American Bottled or Canned Beer
Boulevard Brewing Love Child #2. The next day after finishing my first bottle, I went out and bought another four. I do not remember the last time I did that with a beer.
Best UK/Overseas Draught Beer
Not even sure I had an overseas beer on draught this past year.
Best UK/Overseas Bottled or Canned Beer
I’m going with Thornbridge Kipling, with a close second going to Adnams Southwold Bitter.
Best Overall Beer
Westvleteren 12! Just kidding.
Port Brewing Company Mongo IPA. After a hard days work I always looked forward to having this. Bitter with a great mouthfeel.
Best Pumpclip or Label
Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project Meadowlark IPA. Colorful with great hand drawn artwork.
Best American Brewery
Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project. I can drink their whole line of beers any day of the week, plus their history line of beers has been fascinating.
Best UK/Overseas Brewery
I did not drink enough UK/overseas beer to name one.
Pub/Bar of the Year
Deep Ellum Allston, MA
Beer Festival of the Year
Didn’t go to any.
Supermarket of the Year
Cannot buy beer in supermarkets around here.
Independent Retailer of the Year
Redstone Liquors Stoneham, MA. Friendly, knowledgable staff with good prices. The trifecta.
Online Retailer of the Year
If I cannot get the beer local, I am not going to get it.
Best Beer Book or Magazine
Beer Advocate, but then again it is the only beer periodical I read.
Best Beer Blog or Website
Boak and Bailey. Well written, and concise. When my feed reader became clogged with hundreds of unread posts, Boak and Bailey was the only beer blog I caught up with, the rest got the “mark all as read” click.
Best Beer Twitterer
Umm…
Best Online Brewery Presence
Brewery websites have consistently been awful, so I tend not to bother with them. There might be an outlier or two, but I have not found them.
Food and Beer Pairing of the Year
I drink beer. I eat food. They might happen at the same time, but no thought goes into it.
In 2013 I’d most like to…
Write a bit more, and be more timely with it.
Author: Dave
Categories: Beer News, Beer Reviews
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Narragansett beer is now available in North Carolina. So pick up a six-pack of Tall Boys at your local grocery store and pretend to go out shark hunting! (Quint is a character in Jaws… I’ll let you guess which one.)
Also along those lines (of beer releases, not shark hunting), Narragansett Porter has recently hit shelves. I should review the beer, but the less people know how good it is, means more for me! (Lew gives a good summary of the beer with “Wow!“)
Which brings us to (everything is just flowing together so nicely) another point of, will I actually post something of substance (i.e. a beer review)? Hopefully soon, but unfortunately raising an 18-month old is a bit of a time commitment (Who knew?). Speaking of which, the little guy is up from his nap, so I’m off!
Author: Dave
Categories: Beer News, Narragansett
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A bit of good news to report on a recent blog post of mine regarding the “Farmer-Brewery” license in MA. After a group of MA craft brewers sat down with State Treasurer Steven Grossman, Mr. Grossman announced, on August 8th, that the Alcohol Beverage Control Commission (ABCC) would be reversing the rule change dealing with “Farmer-Brewery” licensing and will schedule a series of public hearings for comments on the current system of licensing. That is certainly good news, especially since the ruling would have had a dramatic economic impact on current state breweries. Prior to Mr. Grossman’s announcement, legislation was filed by State Senator Robert Hedlund (R-Weymouth), on August 4th, that dealt with the ABCC’s “Farmer-Brewery” ruling by creating a new craft brewer license. I am unsure where this legislation now stands, due to the ABCC’s reversal, but the press release announcing the legislation ended with a nice quote.
Craft brewers already must deal with many disadvantages, from our archaic regulatory structure to the outdated 3 tiered distribution rules to competition from international conglomerate brewers. We should be creating incentives to promote this industry not hamstring it,” said Senator Hedlund.
Amen.
Author: Dave
Categories: Beer News
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Given that today is IPADay, I thought I would write a post I’ve meant to write for some time. A while back Alan wrote a post titled “Mr Gillman On APA, SN PA, Liberty, Ballentines And Stuff“. Having just read about Ballantine IPA in Amber Gold & Black: The History of Britain’s Great Beers, I was curious to read if the post had any more nuggets of Ballantine information.
Boy did it! The post references a forum discussion on how to make a recreation of Ballantine IPA. The recreation utilizes two currently (albeit seasonal) brewed Sierra Nevada beers, Celebration Ale and Bigfoot Barleywine, in a “Half and Half” mixture.
Unfortunately I have neither beer in my beer stash, so I will have to wait, anxiously, for this year’s seasonal release of both beers. I look forward to trying the mix out and reporting back with my thoughts.
Happy IPADay everyone.
PS A good, quick read about IPA myths by Martyn Cornell.
Author: Dave
Categories: Beer News, India Pale Ale
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Well this certainly is disconcerting news to read. It seems as though the Massachusetts Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission (the commission of patronage) is taking a firmer stance on “Farmer-Brewery” licenses that will surely put a damper on the recently burgeoning local craft beer industry of Massachusetts.
Though there is another style of brewing license available called “Manufacturer of Wine and Malt Beverages License”, this license does not allow for breweries to self-distribute or do on site brewery tastings (two major pluses for small craft breweries). If a brewery does want to self-distribute they need a second license called a “Wholesaler’s license”. As for on site tasting, I’m not sure there is another license that covers that. Granted this recent firmer stance by the Commission is a great win for distributors in the state, since the new breweries will need to go through said distributors if the breweries can not pony up the cash ($5000) for a wholesaler’s license (the distributors probably had nothing to do with this recent firmer stance). Unfortunately as it stands it looks like the law will need to be updated for either a reinterpretation of “Farmer-Brewery” or a new license devised for self-distribution and tasting, with distributors fighting tooth and nail against (as they have before when dealing with distribution law changes).
The thing is (and this may shock some people, because Massauchesetts is located in the grain belt*), and as a post on Brewbound points out, Massachusetts does not even come close to producing enough malting barley for brewers to meet the “Farmer-Brewery” requirement. I guess if all the local farmers replaced their fresh grown edible produce with malting barley and hops, this might all just work out however. Then again that seems like a rather strange priority to have.
*No it isn’t.
Author: Dave
Categories: Beer News
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Q.N.I.A.G.B being the acronym for “Quick Notes of Interest from Amber Gold & Black”, if you had forgotten. I actually finished the book a while back, so here is my review of it. “It’s a good book about the history of British brewing. I recommend it highly.” Doubt the review will make the dust jacket anytime soon, but it is what it is. Now on to a note of interest, dealing with P. Ballantine & Sons again:
The highly admired Ballantine IPA, when brewed at Newark, was a deep amber colour with a whopping 60 IBUs and 7.5 per cent abv, aged in oak storage tanks, where hop oils distilled from Bullion hops at the brewery were added to the maturing beer.” (120)
Martyn Cornell, (2010). Amber Gold & Black: The History of Britain’s Great Beers. Gloucestershire: The History Press.
More barrel aging, and this time the use of distilled hop oils. Do brewers use distilled hop oils today? I know they dry hop, etc, but do they use distilled oils? And when was all of this done, the 90′s? Nope. 80′s? Nope. Back in the 60′s! (Though the book does not mention the exact time frame, it does mention the Newark brewery closed in 1971, so I am going out on a slight limb and saying the beer was brewed in this fashion for more than two years.) Interesting stuff! So buy the book.
Next up a beer review… more Q.N.I.A.G.B… something completely different?
Author: Dave
Categories: Beer News
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Feast your eyes on the future: Robot Orders a Scone.
Yeah sure the robot was only ordering a scone… but with a slight upgrade of its hobo-tastic bindle (to say a closable basket), a better way to pay, and a way to show ID… you’ve got a great way to pick up some beer from the corner better beer store (arms would probably help too, though the better beer store employees around me are rather accommodating). No need to leave the cozy confines of one’s house (on say a cold, snowy day) or the B.B.Q. with all your friends… just send your robot on the beer run.
This is a step in the right direction for devices that deliver us beer, and moving away from the flinging or shooting variety.
[First seen on PopSci]
Author: Dave
Categories: Beer News
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When I read the article about the 2,550 Year Old Ale Recipe, the bit about the “barley [being] soaked in … specially constructed ditches until it sprouted” stuck out in my mind. I knew I had read about malting barley in ditches before and going through my old bookmarks I found said reference. In The History of Concord, Massachusetts (by: Alfred Sereno Hudson, Erudite Press, 1904) on page 91 there is reference to, “The process of malting was to cover the grain with a few inches of earth for a few days, until it was well sprouted, and then remove it to the mash tub.” Now I assume there was some drying of the malt involved, but maybe not? Interesting to see the “ditch malt” method still in use in Colonial America.
Author: Dave
Categories: Beer News
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Continuing on with my Quick Notes of Interest from Amber Gold & Black (now referred to with the sexy acronym of Q.N.I.A.G.B) theme, the “Barrel Aging of Beer is Not a New Thing for American Brewers” post:
In Newark, New Jersey, P. Ballantine & Sons’ brewery… also brewed a Burton ale, with an abv of 10 or 11 per cent. In its last incarnation in the mid-twentieth century, Ballantine’s Burton Ale was aged for up to twenty years in oak vats before bottling and not sold to the public, but given to valued customers every autumn” (48).
Martyn Cornell, (2010). Amber Gold & Black: The History of Britain’s Great Beers. Gloucestershire: The History Press.
Twenty years! In oak vats! From the third largest American brewer! (Oh, how the big guys have changed.) I certainly was not aware of this info.
Author: Dave
Categories: Beer News
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As I mentioned in my review of Thornbridge Jaipur, I am currently reading Martyn Cornell’s “Amber Gold & Black: The History of Britain’s Great Beers”. I’m enjoying the book greatly and would recommend it to any one interested in brewing history (specifically British brewing history, though other area’s are also discussed). Anyway, I thought I would do a few quick posts on information, mentioned in the book, that I found fascinating.
First, the obligatory “They Certainly Drank a lot Back Then” (because every history of beer mentions how much beer people used to drink):
… six to eight pints of ale a day, every day, for every adult member of the household was the norm right through to the seventeenth century. Henry VIII, who had two personal brewers, one making ale and one the new hopped drink, beer, ran a household at Hampton Court in the 1530s and 1540s which consumed 600,000 gallons of ale and beer a year, more than 13,000 pints a day. …; higher ranks received more, so that dukes were to get three gallons a day (shared, presumably, with others), disbursed at breakfast, lunch and supper” (128).
Martyn Cornell, (2010). Amber Gold & Black: The History of Britain’s Great Beers. Gloucestershire: The History Press.
Author: Dave
Categories: Beer News
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The story of a recently resurrected 2,550 year old ale recipe of Celtic origin seems to be making the rounds. It has been posted about elsewhere but I read the ScienceNews version (via Wired). Interesting info, and some craft brewer (*cough*DFH*cough*) will probably take on the challenge of brewing it.
Three qualms with the article however. First, it would be a recipe for an ale not a beer. Second the sentence “Beer buffs today would regard Celtic beer as a strange brew not only for its flavor but because it would have been cloudy, contained yeasty sediment and been imbibed at room temperature….” Considering a “buff” is defined as a “fan: an ardent follower and admirer” how could one not have had a cloudy, yeasty, room temperature (or close to it) brew? I mean when was the last time I (you) had a hefe (or insert bottle fermented beer here)? Lastly was the mention of “extreme brewers”. Oh, the Brothers Alström must be so proud for their marketing phrase to have reached a scientific article.
Minus those three minor issues, the article is a good, quick read; interesting news for the brewing world; and yes, I would give the ale a shot.
Author: Dave
Categories: Beer News
1 Comment »
A day late on this one but the Great London Beer Flood had its 196th Anniversary on Sunday. Martyn Cornell over at Zythophile has a fascinating write-up about the event. Hope to get some beer reviews up soon, but for now this will have to tide over the masses.
Author: Dave
Categories: Beer News
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UPDATE! It was pointed out by the beer monkey that I missed some Golden Pint 2012 responses at Andy Mogg’s Beer Reviews. Since Andy is one of the coordinators of the Golden Pints, this was a large oversight on my part. Fortunately there were only a few entries not in Mark’s post (the one I originally used), so the re-tally was pretty quick. The four missed entries helped change some category winners, and those changes have been made below, along with uploading a new spreadsheet.
