The 'Golden Pint' Awards 2013

Here we are again, the end of another year! Beer blogging has really had to take a back seat this year but I still manage to squeeze the odd half in here and there so hopefully I've had enough to put together some worthy candidates. Usual credit to Andy and Mark.

1. Best UK Cask Beer: Dark Star Green Hopped IPA.
2. Best UK Keg Beer: Summer Wine Teleporter was particularly good.
3. Best UK Bottled or Canned Beer: Wild Beer Co. Ninkasi. Stunning stuff, must get myself some more and do a proper write-up.
4. Best Overseas Bottled or Canned Beer: Sierra Nevada 'Northern Hemisphere Harvest' 2012.
5. Best collaboration brew: I think the only one I've had was Thornbridge/Mountain Goat 'Thorny Goat' which, since it was excellent, I'm sure is a worthy winner!
6. Best Overall Beer: Has to be the Ninkasi.
7. Best Branding, Pumpclip or Label: Black Iris pumpclips, still some great work going into those.
8. Best UK Brewery: Wild Beer Co.
9. Best Overseas Brewery: De Molen.
10. Best New Brewery Opening 2013: Not sure I've even had anything from a brewery that's only opened this year!
11. Pub/Bar of the Year: Pivni in York.
12. Best New Pub/Bar Opening 2013: See point 10!
13. Best city for beer in the UK: York
14. Beer Festival of the Year: Failed to get to any unless you count an inaugural 'craft beer' shindig at the Kean's Head, which was home to some excellent beer!
15. Supermarket of the Year: I'm yet to be convinced this isn't a complete oxymoron.
16. Independent Retailer of the Year: Trembling Madness, York.
17. Online Retailer of the Year: Not used many but I think Beer Ritz wins again. Good beer, good service, what more can you ask for?
18. Best Beer Book or Magazine: Tim Webb and Stephen Beaumont's Pocket Beer Book 2014 has been quite a good read.
19. Best Beer Blog or Website: Toss up between Steve and B&B for different reasons, but Beers I've Known I think. 
20. Best Beer App: Untappd, again if only because I don't use any others, but I think it's a good bit of fun.
21. Simon Johnson Award for Best Beer Twitterer: Wow, hard merkin to fill, I've only ever given this to Simon. Might have to plead too little time spent on Twitter.
22. Best Brewery Website/Social media: I like Harviestoun's shiny new site, and at the risk of being considered open to (more) bribery, it was nice to be quoted on there!

Cheers, all the best beverages for 2014. My resolution is to get more beer up on the blog. (Don't expect the whisky not to keep coming though!)

Another Day in York

This is a continuation of the last blog post I did which was in danger of getting a bit too long, but since most of the places I went to in York deserved a mention it seemed wrong leaving any of them out entirely!

Pride of place for the day had to go to the magnificent beer selection in Pivni. I could probably have spent the whole afternoon in there but as it was I had to be content with a glass of De Molen Citra. This was a great single-hop IPA, really beautifully light without too much overbearing tropical fruit character, erring more towards the lemon and grapefruit end of the IPA spectrum, which I felt worked well with the lower (4.8%) abv.  If you are a beer fan and find yourself in York, then Pivni is a must visit, although if you come by traing I'm guessing you may find yourself stuck in the station. York Tap or York trap?

More wandering after lunch saw us ending up in the shop part of Trembling Madness, yet another beer paradise, and saw me leaving clutching a couple of carrier bags full of beer, including another El Dorado single hop beer, tying in nicely with the one I had at York brewery. More on those to follow. I also managed to pick up another sample of whisky, this time a spicy 13yo from Braeval, courtesy of Vom Fass. I'll be writing that one up soon too.

We had our evening meal at El Piano, something of a spread out chain - with the others being in Granada and Málaga. Good as the food had been so far this was the best we'd had. The variation in flavours that they managed was fantastic, and I had a meal that was 90% sourced from within 30 miles. Since I was in York I felt I had to revisit an old favourite from back in the lost days of my youth, I had a bottle of Black Sheep with my dinner. It's a beer that's quite common nowadays so probably not worth my input since I'm sure most people have tried it, but have a look at Matt's piece over on his blog, a great story (sort of) about the beer.

So that was York. It had been so long since just the two of us had some time away it was great to make the most of it in a friendly city that really fit the bill for us. Great food, great drink! I'm not sure where the next destination will be but it has a lot to live up to.