Irish Golden Pints 2015

This is the first time I've nominated beers for the Golden Pints awards and I was initially torn between doing a UK list or Ireland list, then quickly realised I've had a lot more Irish beer this year than ones from England, Scotland or Wales.  So that's sorted then.  Also please remember when reading this that it's what I think.  You probably won't agree with a lot here but that's ok - next time you see me you can buy me a beer and we'll talk about it like reasoned adults. 

Best Irish Cask Beer - Farmageddon Mosaic IPA

Cask is a rarity in Ireland, north and south.  The best tasting cask beer I experienced this year was at the Belfast Beer and Cider Festival in November and goes to Farmageddon's Mosaic IPA.  A cracker of a beer, fresh, crisp, fruity and one of the few beers I tried more than thrice, ahem. 

Best Irish Keg Beer -  O Brother Brewing Brutus

My winner by a long way.  I fell in love with it at the Irish Craft Beer Festival in Dublin's RDS in August and I still love it.  Very much.  Also shout outs to The White Hag's Black Boar and 8 Degrees for their new Belgian stout, Signal.

Best Irish Bottled/Canned Beer - Galway Bay 200 Fathoms  

A Teeling Whiskey barrel aged imperial stout is right up my street.  Their chocolate milk stout Buried At Sea is also high up the list as is O'Haras Leann Folláin.

Best Overseas Draught - Brewdog IPA is Dead Citra

I'll class overseas as mainland GB in this list and first place goes go the juggernaut that is Brewdog, had in their self-named bar in Liverpool.  Titanic's Plum Porter and Fallen Brewing's Platform C are crackers too.

Best Overseas Bottle Beer - Williams Bros Froach 22

Loch Ness' 10%abv Double Cask Prince is fantastically smooth but it is pipped to the top spot by the 11%abv Williams Bros Froach 22, a heather ale matured in ex-sherry casks which were previously used to mature Auchentoshan single malt (it just sounds good!)

Best Overseas Canned Beer - Beavertown Gamma Ray

The two top spots here go to Beavertown from that there London town with the American pale ale Gamma Ray coming 1st.  Also look out for their stunning triple IPA Power of the Voodoo, it's a beezer.

Best Collaboration - Galway Bay Goodbye Blue Monday

Another winner for Galway Bay. Brewed in collab with Begyle Brewing from Chicago, it's a hoppy oatmeal IPA.

Best Overall Beer - Galway Bay 200 Fathoms

I've been dreading this category...but had to narrow it down to about 5.  And then 3. 

And then finally 200 Fathoms.  Maybe absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that guff but it pains me to have had it only once this year - I miss you 200F.

Best Branding - 8 Degrees

Respect is paid to Northern Ireland's two new publicly owned co-ops, Lacada and Boundary for having something different but the boys at 8 Degrees take the crown.

Best Pumpclip - O Brother's Brutus.  

Loved it.

Best Label - Red Hand Pale Ale

Small brewer Red Hand pale ale from Co Tyrone - a child's hand.  So simple.

Best Brewery - Galway Bay

Another one for the GB massive.  Although 8 Degrees and O Brother did run them close.

Best Overseas Brewery - Beavertown

Hmmm... Loch Ness, Isle of Skye and Brewdog are right up there but again it goes daaaaan saaaaf to that Landan taaaan brewery Beavertown.

Pub of the Year - Kiwi's Brew Bar, Portrush

I thought I'd venture out of a city and award this to a cracking wee bar with a really good range of bottles in a town not overly known for its craft beer selection. Plus it shows football on tv. Well done Kris and the team.

New Pub of the Year for 2015 - The Woodworkers, Belfast.  

Although it opened in December 2014, it's a winner here. Regular meet the brewer events, great rotating taps and a fantastic food selection to boot!

Best Festival - Irish Craft Beer Festival

Despite being involved in the Belfast Beer and Cider Festival my favourite festival of the year was the ICBF in the RDS in Dublin last August.  So many brewers selling their Irish beer, so many great food stalls out the back with ample seating and a good DJ doing his thang..

Supermarket of the Year - None

A lot of them are still quite rubbish so I'll pass on this until (some chance) they reach somewhere near the level of independents.

Independent Retailer of the Year - The Lighthouse

Within 10 miles of Belfast, it's this fantastic place in Whiteabbey. Also great to see others like The Vineyard, Gap Wines, Lavery's, Wineworks and Neill Wines have a wide ranging selection too. 

Online Retailer of the Year - www.drinkstore.ie

I've used a few but the winner is Drinkstore, primarily for their discount policy!

Best Beer Blog or Website - http://thebeernut.blogspot.co.uk

Always informative.

Simon Johnson Award for Best Beer Twitterer

@thebeernut for his dry wit or @twattybeer (Twatty Beer Doodles)

Best Brewery Website/Social Media - ......

Anyone who doesn't retweet 50 fecking times a day. 

Pumpkin Beer

The Hallowe'en party time has come and gone and kids everywhere have thrown their manky old and wilted pumpkins in the bin.  But what else is a pumpkin good for apart from displaying on October 31st?  
Soup, stew, even ravioli.  What about ... beer? Now bear with me on this, don't screw your nose up like that.

One of my favourite Ulster beers is from Rathmullan in Co. Donegal, Kinnegar Brewing's Long Tongue - a pumpkin beer with added ginger. This review doesn't include that one as it's not yet on the shelves, will be soon though.

Over Hallowe'en I did manage to track down 5 pumpkin beers and here's what I thought of them.  (The quick review is Beavertown's Stingy Jack is the best by a county mile - the longer review is below)

 

TROUBLE BREWING'S PUMPKIN BREW (County Kildare)
4.5% abv
Red ale with strange spice mix.  Could have had more pumpkin flavour and also a bit too sweet for me.

BROOKLYN BREWERY'S POST ROAD (New York)
5% abv
More carbonated than Trouble Brewing and with slight nutmeg spice.  Very fresh and easily downed.

BEAVERTOWN BREWERY'S STINGY JACK (London)
7.2% abv
The Beavertown website website modestly states this as "The best damn spiced pumpkin ale you will ever sup on. Fact."  And batta bing, they're bang on the money.  This phenomenal beer is brewed with maple syrup, nutmeg, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, clove and cinnamon!  Hunt it down, buy a few and repeatedly enjoy.  Oh yes.

 

FLYING DOG BREWERY'S THE FEAR (Maryland, USA)
9.0% abv
The strongest of the lot here, this rich imperial porter does pack an alcohol punch.  In my opinion, the alcohol greatly overpowered the taste of any actual pumpkin.  Bit of a shame.  It was still a decent slightly spicy beer but fell short of tasting how a pumpkin beer should - that is - of pumpkins.

RED HAND BREWERY'S PUMPKIN ALE 
(Co. Tyrone)
4.5% abv
I first tried this just after Hallowe'en and I have to admit I wasn't impressed. Very sharp and bitter (Mrs W even made a comparison with TCP).  I tried another a few days later in case I had a bad bottle.  It was the same - so bad I had to throw it down the sink.  And I hate doing that.  
(Edit. Simon from Red Hand saw this review after publication and very kindly contacted me to apologise for the beer being off. It had obviously become infected and should not be been sold he said. Thank you for your honesty and kind apology.)

Anyway, I hope you had a good Hallowe'en and here's to enjoying the Kinnegar offering when it appears.

Cheers
Roy

www.twitter.com/roywillighan

Down on the Farm...

The past twelve to eighteen months have been fantastic for the Ulster beer scene. 

Alongside the established and newer breweries, since late 2012 this small part of the world has seen the introduction of Sheelin, Pokertree, Red Hand, ClearSky, Kinnegar, Muckish Mountain and Donegal Brewing (I referred to Ulster instead of Northern Ireland as I wanted to include the last three there from County Donegal). 

Add to that list the newest baby to the fold, Farmageddon Brewing Co-op.  Based just outside Ballygowan in County Down, they have just last week released three new brews to the eternally grateful Norn Iron following.  So how do they fare?  Let's start with the Gold Pale Ale.

This 4.2% ABV gold pale ale is well carbonated and light and floral on the nose.  The floral theme continues into the taste combining with elements of sharp grapefruit citrus.  The citrus continued to develop with each mouthful and although I enjoyed the Gold, I don't think it's a beer I could enjoy over and over again in one go.  If you're a fan of light ales that pack a punch of grapefruit flavour, then this is for you.

I was much more satisfied, however, with the deeper and darker India Pale Ale.  It has a higher alcohol content at 5.5% although it really isn't noticeable.  
What is noticeable though is the mellow sweetness of the India compared to the Gold.  Where the Gold has a citrus bang, the India is much more rounded and smoother.  Caramel tones exude from this beer and it's an ale that I could enjoy frequently in one session.

Finally the 5.2% India Export Porter.  I'm a fan of porters and I was looking forward to this one most. Excellent carbonation, a great dark brown colour with a not-overpowering aroma of coffee.  On tasting, dark chocolate and bitter espresso came to mind.  This was polished off in no time at all, another quality brew.

By their own admission, Farmageddon have big plans for the year ahead. They're planning specials such as a Cascadian Dark ale, Single.Malt.And.Single.Hop aka S.M.A.S.H (various different hop types) as well as a Rye pale ale, a dubbell, double IPA and Imperial stout. 

They've also planted 360 heritage cider apple trees and hope to reap the rewards of that in the next year or so!

I always thought 'armageddon' meant 'end of the world' but after tasting their three new brews I really hope that rather being the end, this is the start of a great new chapter for the Ballygowan business. Maybe they should be renamed ... Genesis?

Review of 2013 and onwards...

So 2013 is almost at an end.  What did we witness in the past 12 months?  The birth of Prince George, the death of Thatcher and Mandela, a Pope resigned for the first time in 600 years, Fermanagh hosted the G8 summit, Derry-Londonderry was UK City of Culture, twerking became the news and One Direction still haven't split up.  

Also this year Northern Ireland saw a rise in the number of microbreweries.  Beezer, I hear you cry!  Ten craft and real ale breweries are now dotted across our land providing more choice than ever to the discerning drinker who is fed up with the usual bland and over-fizzy gubbins that can be bought in every bar in town.

A revolution is taking place friends.  Alongside so-called established brewers such as Hilden, Whitewater and Clanconnel (who produce the McGrath’s range), other budding business ventures are being started up with vigour and gusto.  This year alone has seen the introduction of Red Hand and Pokertree from Tyrone, Sheelin from Fermanagh as well as Farmageddon from Co. Down and Clear Sky.

I love the name Pokertree and details of where the name came from can be found on their website (www.pokertreebrewing.co.uk). Based in Carrickmore they produce a very tasty bottle-conditioned Ghrian Golden Ale (brewed with coriander seed and lemon peel) as well as the darker Red Earl Ruby Ale.


Twelve miles down the road, Simon and Ciaran at Red Hand Brewing hope to have a Red Hand Pale Ale available to the Donaghmore public by January with a hope of expanding their 100L brewery by the summer. Unfortunately that means folk from outside the village will just have to visit McCausland's pub or the award winning Brewer's House to sample their wares until then.

Sheelin from Bellanaleck in County Fermanagh is run by the very personable scientist and self-confessed yeast enthusiast Dr George Cathcart. He has a blonde ale and a stout currently on the market and hopes to brew a red ale and IPA in 2014. (I really loved the IPA when testing it last August - please make it happen George)

Clear Sky (currently contact-brewed by Hilden) produce the very appealing Fulcrum wheat bear and is available in a number of good pubs across Northern Ireland while Farmageddon’s early 2014 plan is to have three brews in their core range (gold, IPA and porter) as well as up to SIX specials.  Watch this space for exciting news from the Farm.

Other breweries established in the past couple of years such as Ards and Inishmacsaint continue to grow.  Gordy Fallis from Inishmacsaint has done well to promote the brand name over the past year (no doubt helped by featuring in the BBC NI programme ‘Farm Fixer’ with Lord Sugar’s trusted aide Nick Hewer.)   A new Inishmacsaint Lough Erne Brown Porter was first seen at the Belfast Beer Festival in November and we shall see in time if that proves as popular as his original production.  A farmhouse ale called Muck Savage has also just been released and further plans for that in 2014 are unsure.

Charles from Ards Brewing is currently building a bigger brewhouse so hopefully 2014 will see more of Pig Island, Ballyblack, Rockin’ Goose and Cardy Man.  You may also see something new from them using the fresh and light Citra hop. 

As I said earlier, a revolution is taking place.  Never before has there been such a choice of flavoursome, interesting, LOCAL brews. Where possible encourage your friends to sample a Hilden Twisted Hop or Whitewater Clotworthy Dobbin.  Visit more craft/real ale pubs.   The more that is sold by pubs who have the vision to sell these beers the more they will want to CONTINUE to sell.  The more they sell, the more these beers will be in demand and consequently brewed by the breweries mentioned above.  Who knows what the December 2014 blog will feature?  Hopefully I'll be writing that One Direction have split up by then.

I'll drink to that - cheers!