Golden Pints 2016

We've had some amazing beery experiences during 2016 - from our own collaboration with Bad Seed Brewery, to brewery-led trips to Colorado, Bristol and Brussels, a rising standard across our hometown, Sheffield, and some excellent beer consumed simply at home. It's also been the first full year we've spent working in the brewing trade, and it is truly the most friendly, rewarding and exciting industry to be a part of. Here are some of our highlights...

Best UK Cask

Winner: Torrside - Candlewick. Sometimes, all you need is something classic, and this stout from Torrside is just exemplary of the style. Everything we've tried from these guys has been Very Good or better, and they're lovely chaps to boot. Looking forward to seeing more from them in 2017.

Best UK Keg

Winner: Buxton - Red Raspberry Rye (double raspberry edition). Drank at Port Street Beer House, this was a magnificent end to a day out at Indy Man.

Best UK Bottle/Can

Winner: Buxton - Axe Edge. Complex, juicy and consistently brilliant.
Honourable mention: Chorlton - Amarillo Sour. Another go-to and a staple in our fridge.

Best Overseas Draft

Winner: Crooked Stave - Silly Cybies. A barrel aged raspberry sour, bursting with fruity flavour, exploding across the palate, and a body that leaves your mouth literally watering in need of more. Simply beautiful. Gutted that this doesn't seem to be one of the Crooked Stave releases that makes it across the pond.
Honourable mention: Lervig - Sippin' into Darkness. The top beer of IndyMan, described to us as "liquid Double Decker", and we can't say it better ourselves. LUSCIOUS.

Best Overseas Bottled 

Winner: Brussels Beer Project - Delta. A delicately balanced light beer reminiscent of an APA but with a quintessential Belgian twang of fruity esters, heightened by a classically American dry hop hit.
Honourable mention: Yeastie Boys - Xerrex. Because obnoxious in beer sometimes is needed.

Best Collaboration Brew 

Winner: Buxton/Lervig - Trolltunga. We've both thoroughly enjoyed this on keg and in bottle, on numerous occasions. Astoundingly refreshing and delightfully tart. Love the artwork, too.

Best Branding 

Winner: Mad Hatter - colourful, distinctive, just on the cute side of "a bit weird". Inspired!

Best UK Brewery 

Winner: Hawkshead. In our eyes, they've done no wrong this year. Their cask output is consistent and maintains their appeal to a more traditional local market, but in keg and bottle they've pushed the boundaries of what beer can be. Chuckleberry Sour and Tonka have made a welcome return, and new beers such as their Tiramisu stout have been some of the best we've drank all year. Bravo!
Honourable mention: Buxton. Similarly to Hawkshead, they manage to nail traditional styles at the same time as coming up with innovative and delicious beers. Pipped into second place simply as we haven't seen as many new releases from them this year as we'd have liked.

Best Overseas Brewery

Winner: This was a toughie, but we've gone for To Øl, largely for their range of dry hopped sours. Always interesting, often challenging, and largely delicious.
Honourable mentions: Omnipollo, New Belgium, Cantillon.

Pub/Bar of the year

Winner: Small Bar, Bristol. One of those places that you'd quite happily never leave.

Best Taproom

This is an additional award we wanted to add in here simply because we've had so many incredible experiences this year. January witnessed a two week long trip to Colorado, and the taproom game over there was just ridiculously good. From the mammoth machines of Odell, Oskar Blues and New Belgium (bigger read here), to cosy barrel rooms at Funkwerks and Great Divide, delightfully "pubby" afternoons spent at Equinox and Left Hand and being generally spoilt at Crooked Stave (more on that here), it's been very difficult to choose a favourite. Shits all over anything we have in this country (although we know there are many people coming close and we appreciate those efforts... plus we haven't been to Wylam yet and we have HIGH HOPES).
Winner: Black Bottle Brewery, Fort Collins - for it's warmth, friendliness, zaniness, complete openness to every single member of society, and stonkingly massive range of some of the tastiest beers we've ever drank. Also bottomless nachos. Utter perfection. (You can read more here if you feel so inclined).
Honourable mention: Brussels Beer Project, Brussels - proof that you don't have to do anything fancy to have a great space. We wrote more on this too.

Best Beer Event

Winner: Rainbow Project launch at Magic Rock Tap. We volunteered on the bar here and were made treated like one (well, two) of the team. Great beer, good vibes, top day all round.
Honourable mention: Karkli-Fest. A day in beautiful settings with Karkli's head honcho Kumar and his family, who are quite frankly some of the loveliest and most welcoming people we've ever met. Food, drink and company were all exceptional and it was one of those days where you come home feeling so lucky to be a part of this industry.

Online Bottle Retailer

N/A for us, as we are lucky enough to have three brilliant bottle shops within walking distance from our house (shout outs to Hop Hideout, Beer Central and Turners!)

Best Beer Snack

Winner: Karkli - crunchy, twirly, sticks of spicy joy.
Honourable mention: Smofo - a Sheffield based company making the best pork scratchings IN THE WORLD.

Twitter Personality of the Year

Winner: @ThaBearded1 aka Carl of Twisted Barrel. Hilarious, informative, beard nearly as good as Jim's and not bad in real life either ;) bonus point for having a cute bunny.

Cheers, all... here's to 2017!

Jim & Laura

Sheffield Cookbook: Second Helpings

The second release of the Sheffield Cookbook, from Meze Publishing, is out now just in time for Christmas, and a veritable plethora of Sheffield's restaurants, cafe and pubs are showcasing their top recipes within. Now we're big fans of the first book, and have the Nottingham version too, and this second edition is MASSIVE... proof that Sheffield has a thriving and vibrant foodie scene!

Being the beery types that we are, one of the things that we first noticed about this book is that Sheffield breweries and pubs are very well represented. Abbeydale Brewery is represented by their pub, The Rising Sun in Nether Green, who's kitchen team have whipped up a rolled lamb breast dish with crispy lamb neck bon bons, using Abbeydale's Daily Bread (we have since been to the Rising Sun to taste this dish and can absolutely vouch for it's deliciousness!).

Sentinel Brewery have created a pork and black pudding Scotch egg (which has malt in the coating!), served with brown sauce made from brewer's wort - a really interesting way to incorporate beer and the brewing process into food!

If you're more of a dessert person, one of our favourite shops, Beer Central, has submitted a chocolate cake recipe using Thornbridge Brewery's sumptuous Cocoa Wonderland stout. Thornbridge's best bitter, Lord Marples, is also represented by the Stag's Head pub (which forms part of the Thornbridge portfolio) who use it as a braising liquor for their venison shank.

The recipes are mainly targeted towards pretty ambitious home cooking, but generally use ingredients that are easy to get hold of, making the book perfect for those who like a bit of a challenge in the kitchen. For example, the ham hock ballotine with textures of apple from Thyme Cafe is an excellent mix of simple flavour combinations, incorporating a more technical way of cooking. We're also dying to have a go at one of our absolute favourite dishes - Rico from the Rutland Arms has shared his secrets on how to recreate his INCREDIBLE cod dish, which comprises beautiful roasted fish with arroz nigre (a risotto type dish made with squid ink), braised octopus in garlic and smoked paprika XO emulsion. We always make a beeline for the Rutland whenever we spy this on the specials menu, and the recipe is detailed and informative enough that we have confidence we can at least have a go at doing the dish a bit of justice (we will report back in due course!).

So much deliciousness in every single one of it's 318 pages. Bravo, Sheffield Cookbook!

Cheers,

Jim and Laura