It is trite to say that the new wave of breweries in the UK owe a lot to the American scene.  However, the enjoyment with which I’ve been drinking hop-forward beers like Buxton Wild Boar, Summer Wine Diablo or Magic Rock High Wire makes me wonder if I even really need to buy American beers any more.  Certainly these English beers haven’t acquired either the age or the price uplift of their imported American inspirations by the time they make it to my shopping basket.

Then I wondered whether I really needed to drink beers from anywhere else at all.  Between them, Marble and Thornbridge have been working their way through the canon of Northern European beer styles recently, from Vienna lager through wheat beers to Kolsch, saisons, dubbels and tripels.  Summer Wine have also paid tribute in their own irreverent way with the Lime & Coriander Saison I’m drinking right now and the mind-bending but superb double Belgian Rye PA Cohort.  Sure, I’d miss Orval, but I could certainly attempt to console myself with Durham Brewery’s Bombay 106.

This is not to mention the excellent quality of both traditional English beer styles and those newer styles which, although influenced from abroad and made with New World hops, are nonetheless peculiarly British: the barley wines; the strong stouts and porters like Hawkshead Brodie’s Prime; the cask session pale ales like Roosters Yankee, Ilkley Mary Jane or Hawkshead Windermere Pale; and yes, even the brown bitters that sell by the gallon.

After a bit of thinking, looking at Google Maps and (frankly) gerrymandering, I concluded that, if it came to it, I could probably cope with drinking only beers brewed within a 75 mile radius of my house in North Leeds.  Provided, of course, that they had access to hops flown from the other side of the world.  (I should note I hadn’t even considered Burton and it ended up within the area quite by accident – I was pushing north east and north west). That would allow me to enjoy beers (inter alia) from all of the following breweries:

Acorn, Black Sheep, Buxton, Coniston, Cropton, Daleside, Durham, Goose Eye, Hambleton, Hardknott*, Hawkshead, Ilkley, Kelham Island, Kirkstall, Leeds, Little Valley, Liverpool Organic, Magic Rock, Mallinsons, Marble, Ossett, Red Willow, Revolutions, Ridgeside, Roosters, Saltaire, Sam Smiths, Stringers, Summer Wine, Thornbridge, Timothy Taylor, and York.

Whilst I would scrape by on these riches, in quiet moments I would find myself yearning for Orval, Brooklyn Lager, St Bernardus, Sierra Nevada Torpedo or even Jever.  I’d certainly miss Kernel and Brewdog; it would sting on a positively existential level to never enjoy another Irish stout.  The worst would be to travel and not enjoy local beers: cursed to stick to the Watney’s Red Barrel in “Majorcan bodegas selling fish and chips [...] and calamares and two veg“.

But I think this exercise has helped me to realise that one of the best things about beer is that someone in the smallest unit of an industrial estate in West Yorkshire can buy foreign ingredients and build on the innovation and tradition of other brewers, cultures and traditions, to make the some of best beer in the world, right on my doorstep.  It’s a credit to those American, Belgian and other brewers that they have inspired them to do so.

You can’t say that about wine.  As they say in Doncaster: bollocks to Terroir.

*Just about: I might have to add an extra half a mile…

However, having had the chance to go to the festival on Saturday afternoon as a friend had some spare tickets, I can say that they did an excellent job, and I’ll be quick to snap up tickets for next year.  This is partially due to the long list of corporate sponsors for the charity event: local solicitors, accountants, architects, bankers; the great and good of this predominantly middle-aged, middle class, West Yorkshire spa town which lies in the commuter belt for Leeds and Bradford.

However having a lot of money to throw at a beer festival doesn’t in itself lead to a good festival.  The venue’s pretty good: the King’s Hall in Ilkley is a good size and ornate, certainly a step up from certain other festival venues I’ve been to. The festival also benefits from a stall from the local butchers, Lishmans, which offers hot pies, sausage rolls and “Yorkshire pasties” for a voucher (£1.25) each.

Oh yes, I meant to mention the beer.  I would find it hard to put together a much better list of English cask ale breweries, including Buxton, Mallinsons, Roosters, Thornbridge, Marble, Oakham, Bristol Beer Factory, Dark Star, Red Willow, Hawkshead, Magic Rock, Brodies, Revolutions, Stringers and of course Ilkley Brewery.

I most enjoyed Brodies Citra (on the recommendation of @misterfrosty), a great beer for 3.1%; Hawkshead NZPA and Buxton Wild Boar IPA, both excellent strong, citrusy IPAs; and Revolutions’ Milk and Alcohol, a silky milk stout that Leigh and Dean had a hand in. Another highlight was the superb Ampleforth Cider, as made by a German monk in North Yorkshire, which was a steal at £1.25 a half, given that it’s 8.3% and usually costs upwards of £7 a bottle.  I’m afraid I missed the whisky cask-aged cider from Udders Orchard.

One interesting footnote is the “craft keg” section of the beer list, which had a single British keg offering from Ilkley Brewery, alongside two American (Brooklyn Lager, Flying Dog Pale Ale) and two German keg beers (Jever, Flensburger). All but the local Ilkley beer would have been “permitted” by CAMRA at the Great British Beer Festival as “Bières Sans Frontières”, which does seem a little odd.

However I think we’re in real danger of making the term “craft keg” look absurd pretty quickly if we start using it to refer to Jever: a very tasty lager from a large scale brewery which is part of the Oetker Group, the food processor which also owns “a maritime freight business, a bank, a publishing company, an insurance outfit […] and a number of high-class hotels all over Europe”.

One struggles to find a proper definition, and Ratebeer would seem to suggest that there are two distinct styles or sub-styles: dark, maltier Abts (eg Westvleteren, St Bernardus) and paler “peachy” Quadrupels (eg that of the Dutch Trappist brewery, La Trappe).  Other accounts would have it that “Abt” (“abbot”) or “12” is merely the original Belgian designation for the style described as “quadrupel” elsewhere, the latter term originating with La Trappe.

However,  reading about beers is a poor substitute for drinking them, and I had accumulated four quadrupel/abt style beers.  Given the pleasing symmetry, I thought they were worth trying and comparing over a few nights.

La Trappe Quadrupel (10% ABV)

Pours russet, with a large dense, lasting cream-coloured head. Sweet malty aroma. A rich taste with a lot of sweetness up front quickly revealing a toast (actual buttered toast) and caramelised sugar flavour. Not especially bitter, perhaps just enough to add a bit of definition to the finish. Although it has a thick, oily mouthfeel, it’s actually quite mellow and enjoyable in a warm butter croissant way, although I was left wondering whether there was anything to distinguish it from an English barley wine.

Brewery Ommegang 2011 Three Philosophers (9.8% ABV)

This American quadrupel is actually mixed with 2% cherry kriek. The big head is slightly fluffier and a touch more nicotine-stained than the La Trappe. The aroma shows off a tart sour fruitiness at the edges of the sweet maltiness. In colour it’s slightly darker and redder than the La Trappe. In comparison the taste is still sweet but less so; deep and drier with a kriek tartness. I’d like to try a version without the cherry, but suspect the flavour would be more elusive.

Straffe Hendrik 11° “Brugs Quadrupel Bier” (11% ABV)

When we did the brewery tour in Bruges last summer, they told us that this relatively new beer had been suggested by their American distributors.  The very big fluffy loose head has a bit of yellow to it. This is obviously a much darker beer than the previous ones: deep reddy -brown that looks beautiful held up to the light. There’s not really much of an aroma, perhaps slightly of malt loaf. The taste is immediately warming and alcoholic, a tingle in the mouth.  The sweetness is vinous but tart: almost a hint of brandy, perhaps fortified red wine, and a little dark chocolate. It’s really very enjoyable, a warm bath of a beer.

St Bernardus Abt 12 (10% ABV)

St Bernardus is brewed by the commercial brewery that held the licence to produce St Sixtus beers, before this was withdrawn and the “Westvleteren” beers, including “Abt” (Ratebeer’s best beer in the world) were taken back in-house, or rather in-abbey.  As to how similar the equivalent Westvleteren and St Bernardus are, see this post from Boak & Bailey.  St Bernardus scores very well on Ratebeer too, although it commands less mystique than the hard-to-find Westvleteren.

St Bernardus pours with a relatively light-coloured head, the beer as dark in colour as the Straffe Hendrik, but less red. The aroma is more upfront, signalling the sweet, dark, vinous maltiness within. It has a similar character to the Straffe Hendrik: a little bit of red wine, some dark chocolate, raisins. There’s something else there though, a little spicy, lifting the taste: vanilla, maybe even cardamom.  This, and a less thick body than you might expect from the ABV, makes it very drinkable.

In conclusion it does seem to me that there is a definite difference between the La Trappe Quadrupel and St Bernardus Abt 12, most evident in the colour, but also the taste.  My personal preference is for the darker, deeper “Abt”, and it’s a style/sub-style that I’ll definitely be coming back to.

For another comparison of this style of beer, see this post from Mark Dredge, the comments to which display some of the best and worst of online beer discussion.

Soon others will come - the brewer, the student of brewing, the cynic.  There are other beer geeks here - from Scotland, no less.  Kenny’s down for the football, others have popped over on the train after visiting the big festival in Manchester.  At the bar I speak to a German with a shopping list of English beers half-crossed out in ballpoint pen.

We all pore over the taps, the blackboards and the bottle list.  Each of us is excited by the choice, amazed by the prices, concerned about what we’ll get to try before we reach our limit, or have to go for the last train.  I foresee my own lack of restraint, not enough water, the usual well-meaning but drunken overenthusiasm, the wrong words in the wrong order, “Shit, is that the time?”, and perhaps cold sweat and quiet misery as my body fights overindulgence on the train home.  Still, it could be worse - the unfortunate barman has to go to work this evening.

Fortunately we have limited ourselves to a couple of hours in this place before we go for dinner, a 6pm reservation. This turns out to be wise.  You need a reason to leave The Grove.  So in the meantime we start buying beers, sharing and tasting, talking about them, exchanging news, getting to know people who were Twitter friends – but in reality strangers - until today.

The bar gets dark, the lights go on.  Amongst the astonishing bottle list, the excellent cask ales from as close as West Yorkshire and as far as Kent, the exotic but bargainous keg beers, we are all excited to learn that in the fridges (but not yet on the list) is the new black IPA that we’ve all read about from the excellent new brewery down the road.  We smell it, we taste it and the table’s opinion changes.  A good first impression from the nose shifts as the beer reveals itself to be - whilst fruity - also unexpectedly roasted, smokey and liquoricey.

What is the purpose of a black IPA and does this deliver?  The consensus is probably not - the malt is too dominant.  You couldn’t trick a blindfolded beer geek into thinking it might be a pale beer (the Turing Test of black IPAs; not that you’d actually want to).  Other black IPAs are hurriedly purchased for comparison - one from the Peak District, another from underneath a railway arch in South London.  The London version smells and tastes of Starburst.  It’s everyone’s favourite.  Is the new, local beer miscategorised?  I think it’s an interesting beer in its own right; but no, it’s not a new favourite. Not yet, anyway.

After two and a half hours we leave for the restaurant, only a little late.  For all the strong beers I’m doing pretty well, but can see that tipping point wasn’t far off.  I’m happy and enthusiastic about the pub and the company, old friends and new friends. Overenthusiastic, maybe - like I said, that happens when I’ve had a couple of drinks in good company.  But even in the morning I’m smiling.  Until I remember that I forgot to buy a carry-out.

As Neil explains on Eating Isn’t Cheating, SAB Miller have entered into a distribution deal with the brewery for (at least) Augustijn Blonde, which they’ve rebranded, renamed and have put a marketing budget behind.  This included taking some beer writers to Ghent for a brewery visit.  Whilst I didn’t get a free trip to Belgium, I was sent two bottles of the beer to try.

St Stefanus Blonde (7%ABV) Pours very slightly cloudy with a large head, because I chucked the yeast in as I like to do that with Belgian beers.  The aroma has a banana bread sweetness, a little like a wheat beer.

There’s a nice section on the label that tells you how the beer should evolve in the months after bottling, from 3 to 18 months.  This is around the three month mark, as the seemingly handwritten (but perhaps not) date tells me it was bottled in October 2011, so it should be on the “fresh and fruity” end of the spectrum, rather than “complex and aromatic”.

It has a mild, bready, slightly banana taste, as the aroma advertised.  Kate’s glass, without the yeast in, has a cleaner, less banana taste, but is sweet and slightly bitter with a floral hop taste.  A slightly oily, moderately full mouthfeel works well, and coats your mouth well to appreciate the sweet bitterness on the swallow.  In all, an easy-drinking and pleasant Belgian blonde.

Out of curiosity I also opened a bottle of Augustin Grand Cru (9% ABV), which does not yet seem to have been rebranded and which I bought myself with real money.  This has a similar best before date to the St Stefanus Blonde, so I assume a similar age.  It differs in a richer, more tart taste and a more noticeable grassy hop flavour.

The Grand Cru is just that little bit more interesting, but really it seems like the same beer, just a little louder.  Neither matches either my rosy memories of Tripel De Garre or bests Orval, which is – to be fair – one of the best beers in the world.  However it’s a nice brand which actually makes a feature of the bottle aging. If SAB Miller get  few bottles of St Stefanus into the fridges of bars which would normally stock no Belgian beer (or perhaps only Leffe), I’ll probably find myself buying it in the future.

Due to their uncompromising ABV, one should generally avoid an Imperial pint of Imperial Stout, much less open eight bottles in a week. However, in the name of art and of clearing the dark and frightening end of my beer shelf, I decided to take on the following:

Black Sheep Imperial Russian Stout (8.5% ABV)

This was brewed for the 2011 Great Baltic Adventure, which Pete Brown participated in. It had a creamy nicotine stain head, liquorice and dark chocolate nose, thick mouthfeel and a vinous, raisin and liquorice taste. It coats your mouth and throat like a pleasant boozy treacle, more sour than bitter. Black Sheep have brewed what I would expect of an Imperial stout: that rich alcoholic liquorice that interests me on occasion but I’m rarely in the mood for.

BrewDog Tokyo* (18.2% ABV)

This “Intergalactic Fantastic Oak Aged Stout” is very much one of the big boys, both in ABV and reputation. It has a very yellow head, with vanilla and maybe a slight woodiness detectable in the aroma. The taste is surprising, much sweeter and lighter than you would expect, although the mouthfeel is also quick thick. The sweetness conceals a little dryness, perhaps from the oak chips? Reading the bottle tells me it also apparently contains jasmine and cranberries, so with that and the vanilla and oak chips, there’s a lot more than just malt, hops and yeast contributing to the flavour. This results in a very boozy dessert in a glass, which becomes almost too thick and sweet to enjoy in quantity without, say, a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Bristol Beer Factory Ultimate Stout (7.7% ABV)

Ah, now this one confused me. One of BBB’s “Twelve Stouts of Christmas”, I assumed this was going to be their attempt at a classic Imperial Stout, perhaps in the vein of the Black Sheep. However something about the aroma reminded me of a Belgian Dubbel, with an unusually prominent yeast character carrying through into the taste. There was also a a vinous chocolate flavour with with a lack of hop bitterness on the swallow, but rather some sourness. In fact the label, read subsequently, clearly stated that it was made with a Belgian yeast. Imperial in a distinctly Belgian manner, and enjoyable in the same vein as Marble’s Chocolate Dubbel.

Buxton Tsar (9.5% ABV)

This “Imperial Russian Stout” aligns perfectly with my tastes. A dirty brown head and good aroma which preempts the welcome dry, slightly fruity hoppiness on a roasty malt base. It’s not sweet like many of the others, although it is a little bit oily; not overly so. A modern take on the classic style, expressed without any fancy additions. Just the beer to enjoy while the sun sets on your own empire.

Hardknott Vitesse Noir (11% ABV)

This “Triple Imperial Vanilla Mocha Stout” is in the vein of the BrewDog Tokyo with its use of vanilla, but with the further addition of coffee. The head is quite thin and the aroma is of a sweet black espresso. The taste leads with the coffee, giving way to sour fruit and liquorice. Not noticeably boozy, but with a quite silky mouthfeel. It’s a nice beer, with the coffee and vanilla lifting the experience above the heavy stouty richness.

Magic Rock Bearded Lady (10.5% ABV)

This “Imperial Brown Stout” has a coffee-coloured head and dark chocolate aroma. Slightly burning on the first taste, presumably from the alcohol, this gives way to bitter chocolate and then a noticeable hop bitterness on the aftertaste. Further tastes combine hops with dark chocolate deliciously. Very decadent and enjoyable.

Mikkeller Black Hole (13.1% ABV)

I paired this particular bottle with a documentary about the Higgs boson. However, in short order, it became quite hard to concentrate on particle physics. It had a big dense brown head, probably the largest of the eight. It smelled big, perfumed and malty. Whilst it was certainly thick and rich, you could easily convince yourself it wasn’t as strong as it is. After all, not many beers are this strong. Throughout, there is a sweet spiciness lifting it, which again probably owes a lot to the addition of vanilla and coffee.

Thornbridge St Petersburg (7.7% ABV)

“Imperial Russian Stout” with a cappuccino head. The aroma is floral and hoppy, which carries through to the taste. There’s a dryness here, like in a good Irish stout. It had a much lighter body than many of the others, with levels of hops to malt that, in relative terms, takes it closer to the territory of black IPAs. My lasting impression was of pot pourri and coffee, which probably doesn’t convey how good this beer really is.

So, what are the lessons of empire? Well it seems that these bottles fall into three categories:

1. Imperial Stouts with a thick liquorice profile dominated by the rich, dark malts (Black Sheep).

2. Imperial Stouts with a big hit of largely New World hops (whilst I do appreciate that the first Imperial Stouts were also very hoppy) to compete with the malt profile (St Petersburg, Tsar, Bearded Lady).

3. Imperial Stouts which add unusual ingredients to compete with the flavour of the malt and an elevated ABV (Vitesse Noir, Tokyo, Black Hole, to some extent Bristol’s Ultimate Stout).

My preference is for the dry or fruity bitterness of the middle category. The strong-but-sweet vanilla-infused beers were certainly nice, but I’ve never had much of a sweet tooth and find myself coming back to hops at every opportunity. Thornbridge St Petersburg, Buxton Tsar and Magic Rock Bearded Lady will always be very welcome on my beer shelf.

But I need to explore much of the new Belfast more. Although many of the entries in the Good Beer Guide for Northern Ireland seem to be JD Wetherspoons (which indicates the work JDW does to promote and supply cask even where it isn’t commonly accepted) there are a few – The John Hewitt; Molly’s Yard – that I always mean to explore but never get to.

However, over Christmas I did get to Bittle’s Bar, a wedge shaped corner pub in an older building on the edge of the new Victoria Centre.  It’s a pleasant little bar with walls covered in slightly absurd paintings of Northern Irish faces: one depicts Ian Paisley with his arm around Gerry Adams whilst Van Morrison, George Best and Alex Higgins look on.

No cask on the bar, but there was keg Whitewater Copperhead, a nice refreshing pale ale I’ve enjoyed from the bottle. I had a bottle of Pig Island Pale by Ards Brewing Co, a new brewery I recognised from a Beers I’ve Known post of a few months before.

The 4.2% beer was bottle conditioned and had a nice fresh hop aroma, which I really didn’t expect from a Northern Irish beer. It was a satisfyingly bitter pale ale with a slightly orangey aftertaste; very drinkable and probably excellent with seafood. I’ll be keeping an eye out for Ards next time I’m back.

Best UK Draught (Cask or Keg)

Winner: Summer Wine Diablo

I think 2011 has been the year of Diablo for me.  I think I had it first around the start of the year, either just before or at NWAF, and at the time it was the perfect beer for me, picking up where Thornbridge Jaipur left off.  Since then it’s been a regular drink on cask, keg or now in bottles. Probably the first beer of which I bought a full case, come to think of it.

Runner Up: Hawkshead Windermere Pale Ale

A revelation of a cask session pale, I’m always happy to see this on the bar when I’m thirsty.  There’s virtually no other beer I’d rather drink after a long walk, preferably with a Brodies Prime Scotch Egg.

Best UK Bottled or Canned Beer

Winner: Kernel 4Cs

More representative of Kernel’s ever-changing range of IPAs than an award just on its own behalf. Each of these beers is a joy to drink; so fresh, juicy and hoppy that they usually reduce me to silent admiration. Happily for my drinking companions.

Runner Up: Summer Wine Cohort

Double Black Belgian Rye PA. It sounds like overengineered nonsense; a lion with reindeer horns and the tail of a scorpion. But it works so very well that it seems effortless. Thursday evening on the sofa becomes a drink in the bar of Spacestation Ultrabruges IV.

Best Overseas Draught Beer

Winner: Tripel De Garre

Everyone should go to Bruges and enjoy the house beer in Staminee De Garre. Everyone.

Runner Up: Odell IPA

Much as I enjoy the big, brash, blockbusting DIPAs, Black IPAs etc of this world, this gets close to exactly what I want in an American beer, and I got to drink it on keg in both Mr Foleys and North this year.

Best Overseas Bottled or Canned Beer

Winner: Orval

I had a lot of very good Belgian beer this year, in Bruges and in Leeds, but this is the one I always want to have in the house.

Runner Up: Bear Republic Racer 5

I do wish the bears (I picture a Grizzly, Polar and Panda around a cabinet table in M&S suits) would get their act together and export more of these to the UK, so we can all enjoy one of the best IPAs in the world.

Best Overall Beer

Winner: Summer Wine Diablo

If this were always on in the pub, in keg or cask, and always in my fridge, I would be a very happy man.

Best Pumpclip or Label

Winner: Odell Myrcenary

Full of energy and understated style.

Runner Up: Sierra Nevada Hoptimum

Clever, refined and fun.  Reminiscent of Tony Millionaire.

Best UK Brewery

Winner: Summer Wine

James and Andy work bloody hard to make beers they’d like to drink, and it really shows.  Craftsmen.

Runner Up: Kernel

There’s a good chance Kernel would have won if I lived in London.  But I don’t.

Best Overseas Brewery

Winner: De Molen

I’ve really enjoyed De Molen beers when I’ve had the chance this year, either in Amsterdam, Utobeer, the Rake or North Bar.  I really want to get to know them better.

Runner Up: Odell

Did Odell seem to hit the UK in a big way this year or is it just me?  Anyway, I really like quite a few of their beers and their design, so it pipped other, more established US contenders at the post.

Pub/Bar of the Year

Winner: Mr Foleys and North Bar (joint)

You know what, it’s all very nice gallivanting to Staminee De Garre, Craft,  Sheffield Tap, The Euston Tap, Port Street Beer House, The Sparrow, The Grove, The Rake, Hawkshead Beer Hall and so on, but it would mean very little if I didn’t have two such excellent bars to go to in my home city.   They’re different, but both have been even better than usual this year, with North’s Magic Rock Launch Night and Mr Foley’s IPA Day Celebration being highlights.  Well done Dean and Matt et al.

Runner Up: Staminee De Garre

Supermarket of the Year

Winner: Waitrose

Waitrose have been stocking Thornbridge beers this year, alongside Sierra Nevada Torpedo, Meantime IPA and a couple of other pretty special beers.

Runner Up: Marks & Spencer

Marks are different from the other supermarkets in contracting unique beers for their own brand range.  Standouts have included Cornish IPA (St Austell) and Southwold Winter IPA (Adnams) and I’m really looking forward to trying the fancy big bottle of Greenwich Hospital Porter (Meantime) I bought the other day.

Independent Retailer of the Year

Winner: Beer Ritz

The beating heart of the West Yorkshire beer scene, which was nearly snatched from us without warning in the first half of the year.  There are, at my last count, three beer bloggers involved in the management and sales at Beer Ritz. This tells you something.  I don’t get home from a long day at work and think, “Oh, law is bloody brilliant. I really must write a blog entry about law”.

Runner Up: The Bottle Shop

Great selection, fortuitously attached to The House Of The Trembling Madness. Getting your clientele pissed on the premises, surrounded by taxidermy, fed to the brim on cured meats, and then making them walk them through a remarkable off-licence to exit: THAT, my friends, is a business plan.

Online Retailer of the Year

Winner: Beer Merchants

Good selection, easy-to-use website, great customer service.

Runner Up: Beer Ritz Mail Order

As above, with an improved website in recent months.

Best Beer Book or Magazine

Winner: BEER Magazine

The intelligent, thoughtful face of CAMRA. I got to write for it this year, which probably signals imminent decline.

Runner Up: The Oxford Companion To Beer

Regardless of the errata, which I am very grateful to various learned beer scholars for pointing out, this is full of fascinating and brilliant beer writing, not least from Garrett Oliver himself.

Best Beer Blog or Website

Oh bloody hell.  This is like Solomon’s Dilemma. However, if you’re asking me to make a choice on the spot…

Winner: Called To The Bar

Adrian Tierney-Jones is the most interesting beer writer I read on a regular basis.  His posts are interestingly written regardless of subject matter: it doesn’t matter if I’ll never have that beer, don’t like that beer, will never go to that pub.  The post is an end in itself.

Runner Up: The Good Stuff

Leigh is also a superb writer. This is a bit awkward, as I know him and now regard him to be a friend, but recently he’s another writer who I’m actually excited to read, either on his blog or elsewhere. A bit of recipe porn and nice photos also helps.

Honourable Mention: The West Yorkshire Beer Blogging Massive

West Yorkshire seems to be replete with excellent blogging.  Lock infinite West Yorkshire monkeys in a room with infinite laptops and infinite taps, and you’d still be very lucky to find  The Complete Works of Broadford Brewer, Eating Isn’t Cheating, Hopzine, Ghost Drinker, New Briggate Beer Blog, Northern Writes, Real Ale Reviews and the others. Also of course, Sir Zak Avery.

Best Beer Twitterer

Winner: Simon Johnson

Simon will walk this category this year, and deservedly so. His blog is also as good as his tweets, and the fact that he isn’t mentioned in the category above is a travesty.  Who’s responsible for this shambles?

Runners Up: Broadford Brewer and Boak and Bailey

From different ends of the country, through their blogs and twitter accounts these tie together the beer scene and write posts that make you think.

In 2012 I’d Most Like To…

Share a drink with those bloggers I haven’t yet met, so I’m really looking forward to meeting people like Steve Lamond, Phil Hardy and Marverine Cole at the European Beer Bloggers Conference 2012 in Leeds.

Open Category: Overall Highlight of The Year:

Winner: Brewing and drinking Summer Wine Covenant

A really lovely offer from Andy and James meant that beer was an integral part of our wedding celebrations.  It was great that the beer came out so well and got such good feedback. However I should say that Summer Wine would have been mentioned as much as they are above regardless.

Anchor Special Ale 2011 (5.5%)

Even though it’s not a preferred style, the annual edition of this beer is something I’ve come to look forward to like the new Beano Annual.  The empty bottle will join its brothers on my shelf.  It can be proud in the knowledge that it smelled of nutmeg and berries; tasted as deep and comforting as its dark brown colour, not too sweet or strong, but with a warming spicy bitterness.  This is a very good Christmas beer indeed.

BrewDog There Is No Santa (4.7%)

Ever the pseudo-contrarians when it comes to marketing, I wonder if BrewDog think there is no Santa just because they’ve been very naughty boys and never get any presents. The slightly Scrooge-like beer name doesn’t hide the fact that they’ve gone into the Christmas beer market with both paws this year, also releasing Christmas Porter, a spiced version of Alice Porter.  The aroma is very Christmassy: sweet and spicy, with noticeable cinnamon.  It’s similar in appearance to Anchor’s style, and inhabits the same ground as a warming spiced brown ale, with  a relatively moderate ABV for the time of year. A very nice beer in the end: Dog bless us, every one.

Bush de Noël (aka Scaldis de Noël) (12%)

Yikes.  The foil label doesn’t do subtlety or sophistication (Ghost Drinker compared it to the foil on cheap chocolate decorations) and 12% suggests real overindulgence.  It is the Christmas version of “The Strongest Belgian Beer” and has a big, very sweet marzipan, cakey aroma.  It’s thick on the tongue with some spiciness but a lot of burnt sugar indeed.  I decided that what the situation required was some cheese, and some Blacksticks Blue and spiced apple chutney allowed me to appreciate the bitterness on the finish, when the burnt sugar subsided.

Corsendonk Christmas Ale (8.5%)

No more classy in its get-up is the similarly Belgian Corsendonk.  This one smells like a sweet spicy dark Belgian beer, and has a lot of sweetness, although a much lighter variety.  Again this benefited from raiding the fridge for cheese and a very pleasant bit of Reblochon helped me to appreciate it much more.  It was still very, very fizzy though.

Brasserie Dupont – Avec Les Bons Vœux De La Brasserie Dupont (9.5%)

Less a Christmas ale than a Christmas present (formerly exclusively for Dupont’s best clients), this is a very special beer.  It’s a nice light saison (come Tripel, maybe?) with a perfectly balanced hoppy character (a little grassiness) which drinks about half its weight. Admittedly this has become of my favourite styles of beer this year, but this is an instant favourite, and a new Christmas tradition if I have my way.

Flying Dog K-9 Cruiser (7.4%)

This Winter Ale is portrayed less as a Christmas ale than some sort of tribute to pet dogs who aren’t allowed to go snowboarding with you but are still up on the slopes with you in spirit.  Or something.  Poor Ralph Steadman. A slightly boozy nose and chestnut colour, then a malty beer which wasn’t too sweet or heavy, with a pleasant and relatively restrained spiciness on the swallow. Quite enjoyable, but not exactly The Beano Annual.  The Topper Annual, maybe.

Sierra Nevada Celebration 2010 (6.8%)

Ah now, this is last year’s Celebration, with an October 2011 best before date.  So, whilst it’s not the lovely fresh hopped winter IPA it once was, there is the ghost of Hopmas past lingering on the swallow, after the light caramel sweetness.  A little bit of dryness on the finish too, building on the longer swallows to a dry, slighty woody, piney taste.  A slightly withered, but still celebratory Christmas tree.

So these disparate winter and Christmas seasonals, of various styles, contained some real crackers and not a single turkey; and there are certainly no leftovers  Most of them are available were I bought them (the superb Beer Ritz), and I’d encourage you to visit your own local independent beer shop this Christmas.

BrewDog are perpetually mired/revelling in controversy for a number of reasons, principally because they deliberately court it for column inches with a number of stunts and campaigns, which are undeniably effective.  They have also made a few missteps, particularly in the customer service on their online shop (which has been acknowledged) and in the consistency of some of the canned and bottled Punk IPA which has recently made its way into supermarkets (which doesn’t yet appear to have been).

On balance, I maintain that BrewDog are A Good Thing.  They are not the alpha and omega of the new UK beer scene, but they are, at the very least, a catalyst in the shift in both the industry and consumer expectation towards more interesting beer, with influences from American craft breweries.  A great example of this is their new, keg-and-bottle-only bars, and in particular what we saw at BrewDog Glasgow on our honeymoon.

Over the course of two visits we:

• enjoyed sharing a big bottle of Bear Republic Racer 5 out of Teku glasses, considering that this was what all honeymooners should do;
• heard a folk singer play;
• spotted Martin and James;
• admired the relaxed but stylish décor and use of space, deciding that the wood panelling on the wall appeared to have been recycled from the floor of a sports hall;
• observed some Group On purchasers tasting beer with the knowledgeable, helpful staff;
• enjoyed a buzzy, busy but relaxed pub on both occasions, with a wide spectrum of customers;
• saw someone order “your standard lager” and not complain when presented with 77 Lager;
• had a conversation with the bar staff regarding what I was tweeting about and the identity of @GhostDrinker;
• drank Evil Twin Yin and Yang, deciding that it was indeed better than the sum of its parts;
• nibbled on some olives and ate a great pizza which soaked up the ABV nicely;
• relaxed after an amazing visit to Kelvingrove Museum across the road, probably one of the friendliest and most diverse museums I’d ever been to, containing everything from Dali paintings to giraffes to tribal masks to Spitfires;
• drank a few very good Brewdog beers, including Hops Kill Nazis; and
• found it very hard to drag ourselves away.

Even James Watt would find it hard to claim to be able to transport Kelvingrove Museum from the West End of Glasgow to West Yorkshire; but if BrewDog Leeds is even half as enjoyable as BrewDog Glasgow, I will be a very happy Loiner indeed.

I still don’t think James will get his statue in City Square, though.