The Golden Pints 2011

It’s the annual beer blogger awards! This is the best of my drinking from 2011 and it’s taken me weeks to put this together as the whole year has passed in a beery haze...

Best UK Draught Beer

Dark Star Tripel, aged a year, served at the Beer Bloggers Conference. Just a stunning, beautiful beer. Dark Star’s Six Hop at the Planet Thanet beer festival takes second. Dark Star are doing good things – Saison on keg is also a winner.

Best UK Bottled or Canned Beer

Fuller’s Vintage. Somewhere between 2000 and 2002. Second place goes to Avery Brown Dredge, of course.

Best Overseas Draught Beer
Avery Maharajah IPA with Ithaca Flower Power a close second. Pilsner Urquell gets an honourable mention because I can’t help but love it and I’ve had a few great glasses of it in 2011. 

Best Overseas Bottled or Canned Beer

For the moment: drinking a can of 21^st Amendment Bitter American on the roof of a New York hotel looking over the stunning skyline.

Best Overall Beer

Avery Maharajah. We’d been drinking all day in New York. We stopped in Rattle n Hum and ordered four samples. Maharajah was so good that Matt and I both ordered a pint of it, even though it was 10.5%. I can still taste it now.

Best Pumpclip or Label

I’m obsessed with Oh Beautiful Beer to the point that I lose hours a week looking on there. The world of beer packaging can be sexy and exciting and really beautiful (as opposed to horrific, as shown here). Some favourites are the 21^st Amendment’s cans, Uinta’s rebrand and Fullsteam.

Best UK Brewery

For innovation, quality and consistency I’m going for two: Adnams and Fuller’s. For kicking off and kicking on it’s Magic Rock and Kernel. And for what I know is coming in 2012 and for what I’ve spent most of the last four months drinking, it’s Camden Town.

Best Overseas Brewery

I don’t drink consistently from many overseas breweries, but I’ve always had good beer from Odell.

Pub/Bar of the Year

If I could go and drink anywhere right now then it’d be Barcade in Brooklyn or Bir & Fud in Rome. Closer to home then I’m going for Craft Beer Co for all the times I’ve realised that if I don’t leave immediately then I’ll miss the last train home (it’s happened far too often).

Beer Festival of the Year

The Snowdrop Inn’s festival in Lewes which Mark Tranter from Dark Star chose the beers for.

Supermarket of the Year

Waitrose

Independent Retailer of the Year

The Bottle Shop in Canterbury – great place!

Online Retailer of the Year

I spent most money at myBreweryTap so it goes to them.

Best Beer Book or Magazine

Adrian Tierney-Jones’ Great British Pubs is superb. Anyone drinking in London should definitely have Des de Moor’s book which is also excellent. CAMRA’s BEER magazine is always a great read.

Best Beer Blog or Website

Oh Beautiful Beer for the website but a lot of blogs have been great to read this year and the ones I never miss are Beer.Birra.Bier, The Good Stuff and Boak and Bailey.

Best Beer Twitterer

@Simonhjohnson. Just to see how much he’s drunk and where he’s drunk it. @caskcrusade is also a great read from Italy (again to see how much he’s drunk or where he’s drinking it).

Best Online Brewery Presence

Adnams do a brilliant job all round.

Food and Beer Pairing of the Year

Pizzarium pizza and a bottle of Brewfist’s Milk Chocolate Stout. An amazing, surprising pairing while sitting on a Rome backstreet with the most delicious pizza I’ve ever had. Second place goes to Toccalmatto’s Stray Dog with pizza in Bir & Fud. Pizza and beer did well this year.

In 2012 I’d most like to...

Start homebrewing (I now have a garage so I can!), travel more, write more things for print and drink in more pubs (I don’t drink in enough different pubs).

In 2012 I’m most looking forward to...

Going to the World Beer Cup!

Best beer I’ve drunk in a brewery in 2011

Unfiltered Budvar Dark straight from the tank. Incredible.