Golden Pints 2016

Welcome to my first ever Golden Pints.  You’ll find that it doesn’t conform to the same formula as everybody else’s.  Why should it?  This has been my year in beer, and for that reason alone I’m writing this my way and not to a prescribed formula.

So here you are.

Best bottled beer.

Marble Brewery, Portent of Usher.

It’s difficult to explain exactly what this beer did to me when I drank it.  But I wished it would never end, it’s sumptuous, heavenly, warming and probably one of the best beers I’ve had this year.

Best Cask beer.

Tapstone Kush Kingdom.

Photo credit: @forkandcarrot 

Hazy, fruity, gloriously full in the mouth.  Difficult to believe that it’s actually a cask beer.  The body and life of the thing are truly fantastic, definitely should be one of your five a day.

Best Canned beer.

To Øl Sur Mosaic.

You really don’t need anything else in a can, but this.  Fact.

Best Double IPA.

The Number’s 55|01.

It’s pretty damn near perfect, in every way.  Coupled to the way it just appeared, with no fuss.  Bang, here’s our first Double IPA.  Thank you very much.  The rest of you can stay at home.

Best Cloudwater DIPA.

V6 all the way, that aroma is just incredible.  So good in fact, that I’d quite happily have it as an air freshener.

The order of the rest?  Oh just put the remaining version numbers into ERNIE and see what comes out.

Best use of beer tiles.

So many people have used beer tiles this year, it’s been a tricky one to conclude.  Do you go for consistency or variety?  Here’s some of my favourites of this year.

Photo credit: @HoptimisticDude

Photo credit: @Myles Lambert

Photo credit: @Sparkyrite

But I think the overall winner has to be this from Matt The List.

Best beertographer. 

Tom Denham has taken some spectacular shots this year.  Lighting and depth of field have been pretty near perfect in most of his shots, the subjects haven’t been too sloppy either.  Think he and I need a bit of a photo competition.

Best BBNo Saison.

All of them.

What do you mean one?  Really?

Ok, if I must.  It begins 01|

Best professional drinker.

Not saying, but here’s a link to the AA should you ever need it.

Best blog.

Has to be Adrian Tierney-Jones.  I’ve not kept up with a lot blogs as much as I should have done this year, and neither have I kept up with my own for that matter.  But I always manage to find time to read Adrians.  It’s pure beer poetry, no matter what he writes.  One could say it’s poetry in mash tun.

Best personal beery achievement.

Becoming an ambassador for St Austell’s Proper Job.

Sharing my love of this glorious beer with other like minded people and informing others of its presence has been great fun.  I’ve met some fantastic people over the last twelve months through being an ambassador, and I’m looking forward to 2017 and plenty more Proper Job.

Because as they say, it’s always Proper Job o’clock!

The Double IPA, is it a thing?

The early part of this year has seen some fantastic double IPAs. Some of which were seasonal brews showing their faces again, some were completely new beers, and others just didn’t quite know what they were. Or they did, except a newer, slightly different version was released before you’d even finished the last.

Now, I’m all for tweaking recipes and altering things to improve the final product, but it would seem that Cloudwater have progressed with their series of DIPAs a little quicker than everybody else; First came the original DIPA, followed swiftly by V2 and then rather rapidly by V3. V4 and V5 will soon be on their way too, but do we really need them both now?

Picture @ThaBearded1

So far, the Cloudwater DIPA series has been very successful, and each one different to the last, but I do wonder what will happen when VMax has been reached.

Moving away from Cloudwater and on to the rest of our DIPA offerings, we have the highly anticipated Human Cannonball from Magic Rock. This yearly brew has the beer geeks mouths foaming at the prospect of getting hold of it. Fortunately for me, I was one of those lucky geeks whose overcame the mouth froth, correctly engaged my talking organ and successfully purchased this beer. I also managed to fill my sweaty palms with an Un-Human Cannonball too. This, a Triple IPA has an even bigger froth factor that will make a mess out of even the hardest of beer geeks.

To get the most out of Human Cannonball and Un-Human Cannonball, you really should add the normal Cannonball IPA into the mix and take part in what is now known as the Cannonball Run. Not entirely like the film at all; no crazy doctors, no priests and unfortunately no 1980’s super hot girls in a Lamborghini either. But nevertheless, when drinking these ‘on the run’ you’ll see that these beers have everything in common with the two crazy Japanese guys in the Subaru. ‘Do sixty, sixty’ may well be your famous last words too, as you are propelled into hop heaven…..Or, it could be the that you end up in the pool after saying ‘I can’t see shit, can you?’

The next DIPA scored very highly on DIPA night. Not on your average Clintons sourced calendar, but on the Twitter calendar, it’s there alright. The score this beer received was 55|01. Quite a strange score that, I hear you say. Well yes, but then there’s more to the beer than just the score.

55|01 is actually the first DIPA from Brew By Numbers. They’ve really made us wait for this, and you know what? I’m glad. No rush, no fuss and no V’s. Just a DIPA exactly the way it should be; extra everything, and a little of the BBNo magic too.

Born To Die from Brewdog may well have you thinking of Lana Del Rey, but you must stop, and stop now! Too late, it’s already dead. You spent too long thinking about Lana and now the beer is dead.

Like all it’s predecessors it only had a short life, limited to weeks, and all the while you’ve been procrastinating about Lana, this poor beer has been gradually fading away without you even realising it. Shame on you!

As the hop fade of Born To Die was irreversible, this next beer is too. Irreversible is the DIPA from Twisted Barrel Ale, who are touted as being more folk than punk.

Picture @Sparkyrite 

So as they sit on opposite corners of the ring, will they slog it out? Or will they embrace and just hug it out with a beardy cuddle? There might also be a rabbit thrown in for good measure. That’s not an elephant in the room, that’s a folking rabbit.

So, what do you think.  Is the DIPA a thing?