Golden Pints Awards 2011

 As 2011 comes to end this evening I thought I would wait till the last second and pick my picks for the golden pints award 2011. 2011 was a real eye opener for me when it comes to beer and I enjoyed every step of my journey and looking forward to new things in 2012 and hope that most of you will come on my journey of seeking the best beer the world can offer.


          Best UK Draught (Cask or Keg) Beer

1: Magic Rock Human Cannonball 2: Buxton Brewery Axe Edge 3: Summer Wine 7'c of Rye

     2. Best UK Bottled or Canned Beer
         1: Buxton Brewery Axe Edge
         2: Porterhouse Plain Porter
         3: Magic Rock High Wire

     3. Best Overseas Draught Beer
         1: Stone Brewing Oaked Arrogant Bastard
         2: Great Divide Rumble IPA
         3: Nogne O Saison
    
     4. Best Overseas Bottled or Canned
         1: Duck Rabbit Milk Stout
         2: Brooklyn Sorachi Ace
         3: Schneider Weisse Tap 5

     5. Best Overall Beer
         1: Brooklyn Sorachi Ace
         2: Orval 2 year (Thanks Matt from North Bar for holding one for me.)
         3: Schneider Weisse Tap 5

     6. Best Pumpclip or Label
         1: Left Hand Fade to Black
         2: Roosters Baby Faced Assassin
         3: Magic Rock Curious NZ

     7. Best UK Brewery
         1: Magic Rock Brewery
         2: Buxton Brewery
         3: Kernal Brewery

     8. Best Overseas Brewery
         1: Stone Brewery
         2: Left Hand Brewery
         3: Nogne O
         
    
     9. Pub/Bar of the Year
         1: Grove Inn Huddersfield
         2: North Bar
         3: Mr Foley's Cask Ale House
 

    10. Beer Festival of the Year

          Sadly I only went to one but it was very nice

          1:Headingley Beer Festival

   

    12. Independent Retailer of the Year

          1: BeerRitz

   

    13. Online retailer of the Year

          1: MyBrewerytap.com

          2: Beersofeurope.com

 

    15. Best Beer Blog/ Website

          1: The Good Stuff

          2: BeerSay

          3: Ghostdrinker

 

    16. Best Twitterer

          1: Broadford Brewer

          2: Geekleeds

          3: Briggatebeer

  

    17. Best Online Brewery Presence

          1: Magic Rock

          2: Buxton Brewery

          3:Hardknott

 

    18. Food and beer matching in the Foley's Kitchen

          1: Chili with Black Band Porter

          2: Steak Sandwich with Propaganda

          3: Foley's Burger with Dark Arts

 

    19. In 2012 I'd most like to:

            Expand my beer and food pairing for the British Bloggers Conference and to have the satisfaction of doing a homebrew and working within a brewery to produce beer for the masses. Do a couple more brewery tours and try to get out and try to find the best beer in the country

 

 

 

 

 

 

     

Beer in Food?!?!

Taken from Magic Rock's website.

As of late at Mr Foley's in Leeds I have been experimenting with not only matching beer with food but also cooking my food with beer. Nothing to exciting nothing to revolutionary just simple basic and sometimes interesting flavours come out with my mad scientist like ways in the kitchen. I have been putting different beers in our burgers and doing different things with our batter seemingly every week.

Taken from Kirkstall's Website.

The most popular beers that have graced the burgers at Foley's have been Magic Rock Dark Arts and Kirkstall Black Band Porter two very different beers but two very similar flavours. Dark Arts giving the burger a very distinct flavour of roasted malt and a bit of bittersweet chocolate which compliment the spices that make the mince and very good burger. Now staying with the theme of the burgers at Foley's I played around with the different beers by making different pastes that go directly on the burger while its on the grill. Black Band Porter from Kirkstall made a very interesting development with the the mixture and gives it a very nice flavour and this seems to be a very popular choice as when I make a batch of burgers it seems to sell out rather quickly and leaves me scrambling to make more.

ratebeer.com

Now that the burgers are out of the way seems that I have the small issue of deciding which pales are the best use for the batter I use to fry the lovely haddock in for fish and chips. First place prize as of late that got the best reviews from the customers Ive talked to has to be Rooster's Last Stand which I understand was Sean's send off beer after he left the brewery. The batter packs a bit of a punch which seems a bit weird because usually the flavour of the beer loses itself in the fryer but Last Stand definitely stands the test of the fryer and still has the nice flavour the beer itself has it and leaves the batter that sticks to the fish very crispy and compliments the fish rather well. With this being an ongoing experiment your recommendations are always welcome and I would like hearing from you. Over the next few weeks I am going to try and do different things and post them if they work and deny trying the things that didn't like my failed Diablo Nachos which my boss thought were OK and I thought needed something else. They all cant be winner but what can you gain if you don't try.

Yet another trip to the ye ole Grove Pub in Huddersfield.

I fought with feelings last Saturday about going to hang out with David, Gary, and Ben also known as @boodrums. I tried to get everyone that wasn't on the #twissup journey to come and join in the fun but sadly everyone was either there or had plans doing something else. So I took the painful journey on the train to get what I consider one of the best pubs Ive ever been too. Walked through the crazy lonely tunnel and finally saw my destination and walked through the doors to my first half to which I sat and drank with the gentleman that I was with. Fullers Vintage Ale 2010 which goes down a fantastic treat and makes me wish I knew what the other Vintage Ales taste like but hell Ive only been in England for 18 months so I can look forward to the future.

Next up a beer which I had no idea existed till a couple of weeks ago the Porterhouse Plain Porter which took home best stout in the world even though its a porter colour me confused but I went with it and damn it man if I didn't enjoy it even shared a bit around the table which was faithfully named Beer Tapas by the guys so hell I went with it. After I polished off the end of the bottle I reached for the dreaded bottle list and talked the table into going halves on a couple of bottles. First up was the mighty Brooklyn Brewery Sorachi Ace which is a brilliant Saison that for some reason I thought was a totally different style of beer the first time I had it. We sat we drank and we enjoyed then back to the list we went and we found Nogne O Tiger Tripel shared that and did the exact same thing we shared we enjoyed and started to think it was time to catch our train back to Leeds.

Other beers shared and enjoyed that evening were:
Kernel India Pale Ale Centennial
Rogue Mocha Porter
Schneider Weisse Tap 5
you can read more on what they drank on David's Blog but this is where my night started and almost ended in a horrible accident that almost saw the four of us catching a damned bus back to Leeds. Thanks to my lovely wife she saw through our drunken haze and directed us to Platform 8 and then called me a dumbass and said she was going to bed cant say that I argue the fact that what I was seeing and what was happening were 2 totally different things.

As we were waiting for the bus/train we popped into The KingsHead and saw a beer that I didn't think I would be seeing there a Magic Rock Brewery CuriousNZ which in my opinion was a fantastic easy drinking ale that rivals the original but I would have to do a side by side taste test just to confirm what I was thinking that night. We shared the Tap 5 on the way back to Leeds and then parted ways with Dave and Ben while they enjoyed some much needed food Gary and I decided it would be a fantastic idea to go grab yet another beer at North Bar. As soon as I walked through the door I was greeted by Big Jim with a tiny friend called Little Jim so under his supervision I enjoyed Little Jim a very nice collaboration brew between Matt and Mark at North Bar and the guys at Marble Brewing in Manchester. This was the end of my evening I went home and cleaned some bottles did some dishes ate some food and finally laid my head on my pillow and promptly took my ass to bed.

Hope you enjoyed the journey go take one yourself and remember to invite me.

 

A very interesting beery week with my parents Part GROVE INN

So Wednesday was the second most anticipated day of the trip and it started out with a bang. We started it off with a lovely walk into town to meet my fantastic wife only to catch the bus to Roundhay Park and eat at the Roundhay Fox. The beer selection there isn't that great but we decided on a pint of Leeds Pale it wasn't great but it wasn't bad either after having some horrible beers on Monday night I will take a safe bet with something that I know. After hanging out in Tropical World and getting to the house we picked up our bus passes and off to the train station we went for my very first trip to The Grove Inn in Huddersfield. Joined by a plethora of beer writers and beer geeks alike which included Rob from Hopzine, Leigh from The Good Stuff, Zak from Are You Tasting The Pith, Dean from @mrfoleys, Toby from Red Willow Brewery and everyone's favourite brew bitch Brian from the Grove. We were missing a few but I'm planning another go in November so get ready guys that missed out.


The evening started tame enough with a couple pints of Magic Rock's High Wire which hell was a fantastic start to the evening. I have always liked this beer ever since it graced the taps at Foleys I think I tried this brew before any of the others and it is by far my favourite Magic Rock Brew. Then the fun started we noticed the board I decided it was time to loosen up and try something a bit out of my comfort zone we tried a third of Thornbridge's Dry Hopped Barley Wine 9.4% which was in one word fantastic. Now I'm not normally into my Barley Wine's mostly because it has the word wine in it but damn if this beer didn't change the mind of this stubborn beer drinker. It had a silky smooth flavour that lasted just enough time to tempt you to drink faster and so I did and picked another brew from the endless list at The Grove. So scanning the board again  we decided on another third because I just didn't want to get that drunk knowing that the parents were wanting to have a couple more beers when we got back to Leeds. As we were sipping on a Gadds/ Revelation Cat Back to Basic Pacific Double IPA 9.0% ( man that was a mindful to try to remember.)  I know this was a good brew but sadly I cant really comment on it because I just don't remember the flavours but it was hoppy and it was tasty so if you see it DRINK IT. As we were drinking that beer a couple of bottles were being passed around the table which included Fathomless an oyster stout made with  actual oysters from Red Willow Brewery now even Toby the mind behind the brew said it was just freshly bottled but in my honest opinion it was dark sweet and a damn fine stout and I for one am counting the days till it hits the pumps at the regular haunts in Leeds. Next was yet again another third but this time of a brewery I have never ever heard of Temptest Brewing Co with their Brave New World IPA 7.0% which was again another hoptastic beer that made me wish I had more time and more money to drink a couple of halves of this beauty. I must say thanks to Brian for persuading me to give this brew a go because if it wasn't for that I wouldn't have even given this beer a second look. So after we polished these down my dad wanted to try a Pilsner so given the company we were in I suggested an Avery/Brown/Dredge from Brewdog and well like most of us he enjoyed the hell out of it and asked that I send him some in the beer trade we will be doing in the coming weeks. So from my Dad Mr. Avery you guys did a hell of a job on the beer and it tasted great (his words not mine.) We also bought a big bottle of Stone Imperial Russian Stout and shared it out with the people that were left. So we savoured our moment in the grove shook the hands of everyone that left and a special thank you to Toby for leaving my dad and mom a bottle of Fathomless to bring home and show people in South Carolina that craft beer is alive and well in England and its not all stupid pump clips with silly names. To finish out our night at the grove we shared a half of Beer Here Dark Hops 8.5% which was kind of like a Black IPA but it most regards it wasn't. 

While on the train back to Leeds we talked about Tetley's Brewery with Dean and trashed the fact that its closed down to possibly make way for an art exhibit I mean its cool if you like that kind of thing but its been such a staple in our fair town it would just be a shame to use the building as anything else but to brew beer. Off we went to Mr Foleys for our second trip to the goodness that is this bar to sample so more Red Willow Brews this time it was Smokeless which I think is one of the better porters on the scene at the moment it just goes down so smooth and is another beer that makes me think of food. A good chili with this a half of this poured in and the other half for personal consumption it would make the chili a bit smokey but I think it would complement the spiciness of my chili just perfectly. To end the evening we decided on three different beers and a couple of measures of whisky. The beers in question were Brewdog's Hardcore IPA 9.2%, Odell Brewery St Lupulin 6.5%, and a bottle of Red Willow Ageless 7.2% The whisky we all enjoyed was an Auchentoschan 3 Wood which smokey fruit flavour went down a treat as we retreated to the taxi waiting outside and went home. All in all the night was a great success and I'm already looking forward to trying to put another night together very very soon.