Witbier-inspired ice cream

In a reversal of the normal way of these things, my New Year’s resolution was to eat more ice cream. More specifically, I vowed to finally use the ice cream maker I've had in a cupboard for months and months, since I now have a freezer big enough to hold the bowl. Inevitably, it didn't take long for me to contemplate ways in which I could incorporate beer into my recipes. I came up with lots of fun ideas, some of which I’ll hopefully get round to in the coming months. My favourite, though, was an ice cream inspired by and witbier – not containing any beer, but  evoking the orange peel, coriander and spicy esters found in the style and, hopefully, complimenting those flavours when the ice cream and beer are consumed together.

The first step was to drink a wit to narrow down exactly what those flavours should be. As is well known, wit is brewed with orange peel and coriander, so these ingredients were a no-brainer. Drinking a bottle of Hoegaarden (not the most exciting example, but the only one I could easily get hold of on a whim, and actually better than I imagined it would be), I also detected hints of clove, black pepper and nutmeg and, conveniently for my ice cream recipe, a suggestion of vanilla in it’s dry, sweet finish.

I adapted the basic vanilla recipe included in ice cream maker’s instruction manual, which involved heating 600ml of single cream until just below boiling, then removing from the heat. Next, I combined 8 egg yolks and 230g caster sugar in a mixer, then added the still-warm cream to the bowl and blended it with the sugar and eggs. This mixture is then returned to the pan, at which point I added my extra ingredients. These were as follows;

• 2 tbsp dried orange peel
•    2 tsp coriander seeds, toasted in a dry frying pan beforehand
•  4 cloves
• A few black peppercorns
• A pinch of nutmeg
• The ‘caviar’ from one vanilla pod, scooped out with the end of a sharp knife    

I heated this mixture until steamy, then poured it into a large mixing bowl and added 600ml whipping cream and a pinch of salt. Leaving the spices and orange peel to infuse, I covered the bowl and left it to chill, transferring it to the fridge once it was cold and leaving it overnight. The next morning, I passed the mixture through a sieve, which removed the extra ingredients but retained the specks of vanilla caviar, and added it to the pre-frozen bowl of my ice cream maker and churned for about 20 minutes before scooping into containers and placing in the freezer.

The resulting ice cream is delicious. The orange and coriander flavours don’t jump from the bowl – you could use more if you wanted, but I like the fact that, as with witbier itself, these flavours are subtle. The vanilla is clean-tasting and fresh, far preferable to the synthetic essence recommended in the recipe, and the spice and orange peel brings a slightly floral, perfumed edge and a toastiness that recalls marshmallows.

Since it was ready just in time for pancake day, I decided to try some crepes with a tiny dusting of sugar and orange juice in place of lemon, with the ice cream served on the side. This was paired with the white IPA brewed by Adnams for Marks & Spencer, a beautiful marriage of witbier and IPA. It's hopped with what tastes to me like Sorachi Ace, which brings out the orange notes even more. The fresh orange juice livens up the ice cream, and the slightly herbal edge of the beer adds an interesting dimension. The bitter finish maybe wasn't perfect for this particular dish, but there’s a lot to like in the pairing.

And then it was time to try the ice cream with a witbier and, although Orval obviously isn't a wit, I couldn't resist using the branded glass as a sundae dish. I chose St. Bernadus wit, which I'd never tried before - it's relatively heavy on the coriander, very strongly carbonated and has a slight metallic edge which recalls rhubarb or lemon. It works with the ice cream, though not spectacularly. The real fun began when I poured a little beer into the ice cream dish, treating the beer like the espresso in an Italian affogoto.

The coriander and orangey flavours are accentuated, as I'd hoped, but the flavours in the St. Bernadus that I wasn't expecting are actually more successful here. The lemon tang in the beer kind of reminds me of lemonade, as does the high level of fizz, and these elements conjure up ice-cream floats from childhood. The creaminess and vanilla have a suggestion of custard which marries nicely with the sharp rhubarb notes in the wit.

For my next experiment, I think some beer might make its way into the ice cream maker. I'm thinking over some ideas involving dunkelweisse, brown ale and milk stout which, depending on how successful they are, may turn up here in the coming months.

Who shares wins pt. II

With a couple of months passing since our last meeting, this weekend was time for another informal bottle share. Here's what we popped open.

First up was one of my contributions, Dark White from Brasserie Fantôme. There's something appealingly mysterious about Fantôme - the bizarre, amateurish branding somehow draws me in, for one thing. There's the use of unusual ingredients - dandelions, for example, or a green tea which produces a beer that looks like a mad scientist's potion. The brewery's reputation is intriguingly patchy, too - Fantôme have their fanatic followers, but even these seem happy to use adjectives like "rough" and "dirty" to describe the beers. Those who are less keen seem to suggest that brewer Dany Prignon carelessly throws together his recipes with little thought as to what works and what doesn't.

Personally, this is my first taste of Fantôme - billed as a saison with spices, it appears to be brewed with black pepper. It pours a murky orange, possibly as a result of spending time in a suitcase as my Dad and brother brought it home from Brussels for me - it's had plenty of time to settle since, and there were no noticeable pieces of sediment floating around, but few pictures online look anything like as soupy as mine. The substantial white head is lively and fluffy and it has a strong nose of boiled orange sweets and farmyard funk. There are more oranges in the taste, along with oregano and pepper. The addition of pepper is deftly judged - it could easily be overdone, but rather than washing out the other flavours, it accentuates that classic saison dryness, combining with a lingering, zesty fruitiness in a quenching, bitter finish. Carbonation is surprisingly low here - I often think of brisk carbonation as a key feature in a saison, but this is a defining example of the style even without the bracing fizz. It's beautiful, and I'll be seeking out more Fantôme on the strength of Dark White.

Next was Samuel Smith's Yorkshire Stingo, a strong ale aged in oak casks that, if anything, seems to drink beyond it's 8% ABV. It's almost still, and we're not able to produce much of a head on our glasses, both factors contributing to the spirit-like nature of the beer - it does, at times, feel like something that should be sipped in small measures from a chunky tumbler. There's lots of treacle and toffee going on, along with raisins, some faint vanilla and an oaky depth from the barrel. Though it isn't as viscous or sticky as beers like this can be, the booziness is a little overwhelming - although bottle conditioned for a year before release, I'd be interested to see if another couple of years might pull it together.

Partizan Huff followed. A mysterious beer in that the label gives no indication as to style or any other information beyond the eye-popping 14% ABV. It is, in fact, a recreation of a particular ale brewed at Winchester College, which you can read more about here. Although a government laboratory analysed the beer, giving Partizan some guidelines as to what they hoped to achieve, I doubt the historical huff would have tasted much like this. Amongst others, a saison yeast has been used to simulate the original beer's dryness. The resulting character is strongly Belgian, not unlike the Fantôme saison, or leaning towards a strong tripel. The stated aim to highlight hop aroma whilst keeping bitterness low is certainly achieved, and there's an earthy hop background complimenting the flavours of candied orange peel and candy floss. Tasty as it is, it's a little hot, and would probably be more enjoyable at about half its strength.

I also had a chance to taste Beavertown and Evil Twin's XXX, an 'imperial mild' which I recently included in a round-up of bottled milds. Having written fairly exhaustively about it there, I won't repeat myself, but the beer's character has changed in the month or so since I tried it - the zesty grapefruit flavours from the hops have died down a lot, and we're firmly in barley wine territory now. It's still enjoyable, but I preferred it first time round.

Whilst the others shared a Kernel export porter and something from Innis and Gunn which was apparently reduced to pennies in a supermarket, I switched to water and concentrated on banishing an attack of hiccups. Another successful bottle share - though I'll be eating a more substantial meal before we start next time.

Brown ale: some final observations

Since starting this blog, I've rattled on about brown ale a fair amount. I feel I've done the subject to death, but I've also spent so much time obsessing over it that I still have things to say. Despite the stylistic diversity of brown ale, there are noticeable trends within the style. As the final word on brown ale for this blog, I propose a series of sub-categories. Bear in mind I'm not taking myself totally seriously in this – brown ale is obscure enough as it is without being chopped up into micro-styles. It’s just a way of presenting the continuities across the various examples of the style I've tasted in the past year or so.

I still try any new brown ale I see. If a local pub tweets that they’re serving one, or a brewery announces they’re making one, I’ll be making mental calculations as to how I can get to try it. It’s a uniquely fascinating style precisely because nobody seems to agree on exactly what it is. 

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Your average beginners guide to beer styles tends to split brown ale into two categories – the sweet, low-gravity ales of the South of England, and the stronger, dry brown ales of the North. The truth is more complex; from the re-emergence of the style in the 1920s onwards, the beers were diverse and did not observe this imaginary north/south divide.

As brown ale stands today, archetypal examples of both the sweet/mild and strong-ish/dry versions remain. Mann’s Brown Ale, despite originating as one of the strongest examples of the style, now sits at 2.8% ABV and tastes largely of cola, treacle and toffee. Harvey’s Bloomsbury Brown, also at 2.8% has a strong caramel flavour, and may well be a relic of the days in which brown ale got its colour from caramel. I've never encountered any further examples of the low-gravity version of brown ale, and it’s easy to see why they fell out of favour – they’re interesting as a curiosity, but are bland and not very beery.

Newcastle Brown Ale remains the most commonly cited example of the stronger version. These beers are often dry and often described as ‘nutty’, although I've always thought this this is the power of suggestion at play – the phrase ‘nut brown ale’ is sometimes used to refer to the colour, but I've rarely detected a nutty taste. Newky Brown isn't a good beer, and it’s a shame it’s the only example of the style you’re likely to find in mainstream outlets. Far better is Samuel Smith’s Nut Brown Ale, which has a very dry quality that even veers towards red wine, and a deep, savoury malty body. (Edit; see here for some further interesting background on Newcastle Brown Ale from Martyn Cornell - "not, in any meaningful sense, a brown ale.")

Modern craft breweries have reinterpreted brown ale in several ways. The first sub-group pays homage to the traditional English brown ale, whilst not belonging to either the Mann’s or Newcastle camps. These beers are defined by a soft, comforting malt profile, which might include hints of caramel or toffee, milk chocolate, blackcurrants or blackberries or cola. A little roasted malt may creep in, but this will be more restrained than a porter or stout, and the beers are of a medium body. New-world hops might add a bitter, citrus finish but this will be subtle. Good examples I've tasted recently include Dirty Kitty by Denmark’s Beer Here and Maduro from Cigar City. Port Brewing’s Board Meeting deserves a mention for using these qualities as a foundation for a massive hit of coffee and rich chocolate – it’s terrific.

The ‘American brown ale’ style will take these characteristics and significantly amp up the hops, but not in a way that overpowers the malt backbone. Dark Star’s Rockhead is the best example of this I've tasted, and Fourpure's Beartooth is excellent, too.

Some beers call themselves ‘India brown ale’. What you’re getting here is obvious – a big hit of hops. This is generally my least favourite incarnation, though some are better than others, mainly because the brown ale base is wiped out and you end up with something closer to a black IPA. I would place BrewDog's recent “hopped-up brown ale” prototype in this category – I thought this was a poor beer all round, and tasted of little except overly bitter hops that left a citrus washing-up liquid taste that lasted for ages. Others whose tastes I trust found a lot more to it, so maybe I had an off bottle or my taste buds had an off day - either way, I stand by the assessment that the hop profile dominates everything else. Weird Beard’s No More Bright Ideas, whilst it tastes great, offers little to the brown ale enthusiast – it’s a very dry beer, bursting with vibrant and zesty hop character, but this renders the malt base irrelevant.

There is also a small breed of what appear to be brown ales, but aren't. When I wrote about Brighton Bier’s Free State, billed as “21st century brown” here, I remarked that the nevertheless delicious beer had very little ‘brown’ quality. Brewer Gary Sillence got in touch with me to clarify his intentions - “My main ambition was the break down the mainstream perception that brown beer means dull or old fashioned”, he said, and the beer was never intended to be received as a brown ale as such – his alternative tagline was “brown beer for a new generation”.  Magic Rock’s The Stooge, though billed as an American Brown Ale, seems to be doing much the same thing. It’s a far lighter shade of brown than most examples of the style. You might call its shade 'chestnut' – closer to a bitter (that's it in the photo at the very top of the first, if you'd like to see for yourself). And it drinks like a bitter, too, albeit one hopped with assertive US varieties alongside earthy British staples – the luscious malt character has an easy-drinking crispness to it that doesn't belong to brown ale. Are we at a point when the agonisingly unglamorous name ‘brown ale’ is more fashionable than ‘bitter’?

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I don’t know it just seems this way because I've been actively looking for them, but I'm sure I'm seeing more brown ales than ever recently. With talk of a hop shortage, are breweries falling back on malt-driven styles such as this? In any event, I promise not to drone on about it any longer.

Going mild

Perhaps unconsciously inspired by Boak and Bailey’s recent bottled mild taste-off, I seem to have amassed a small collection of these myself. Mild has always been a curiosity to me, fuelled by the fact that it’s rarely seen at all in this part of the country. Bottled mild also seems to be uncommon – as I learnt recently, this probably dates back to the time when breweries primed their mild for bottling and labelled it brown ale – though brown ale was not necessarily always the same as mild, bottled mild was nevertheless rare. And anyway, mild in its modern form (low ABV and easy drinking) is strongly associated with sessions in the pub rather than supping on the sofa. That’s not to say it doesn't work in bottled form, as proven by the following thoughts on four beers, none of which were less than decent.

Pretty Things Once Upon a Time Feburary 22nd 1945 X Ale

In 2012, Pretty Things brewed two milds in collaboration with Ron Pattinson. Both were based on archival Barclay Perkins recipes; the first, from 1838, was strong (7.4%) and highly hopped, whilst the post-Second World War beer demonstrates the effect of the war on brewing, having dropped to just 2.8% and using only a fifth of the hops of the previous incarnation. “This is mild as we know it today”, read Ron’s notes on the label, “a low-gravity, lightly hopped, dark beer.”

Having read about the beer on Ron’s blog, I was excited to find it for sale at Beers of Europe. I had assumed that a second batch had been brewed since then, and might not have taken the punt had I known the bottle was almost four years old. Mild – especially a low-alcohol one with light hopping – isn’t a style for the cellar, and I was a little worried about how it might have held up.

As it turns out, all was well. An initial musty flavour had me fearing the worst but, if I'm not mistaken, this is a characteristic of the hops. I found a similar flavour recently in a pint of Kent’s KGB bitter, an East Kent Goldings-heavy brew. It’s earthy, a little like tobacco with an edge of Shredded Wheat, and it’s not unpleasant. The pour isn't as dark as I expected – a dark amber rather than brown or black, with a fluffy with head. Golden syrup aromas burst from the glass, along with some marmalade. A thirsty first chug is dominated by that earthiness, accompanied by slightly sweet and nutty malty flavours which suggest toffee and marzipan, and the finish is dry and bitter with a slightly chalky, mineral aftertaste.

There’s a tingle of carbonation on the roof of the mouth, but too much – it remains soft and smooth, closer to a cask pint than your usual effervescent bottle, and if the body is a little thin, that smoothness more than makes up for it. I know poncing around with tasting notes, which isn't really appropriate for a mild from 1945 even if I think the beer is interesting enough to justify doing so. But, drinking this, it’s easy to see why modern milds were so popular – it’s tasty, but easy to drink and moreish with it.

Evil Twin/Beavertown XXX

Sadly I don’t have a bottle of Pretty Things’ 1838 mild to compare, but I do have this, a 9.5% monster based on an 1839 recipe from an unnamed London brewery. This may be pretty far removed from what we recognise as mild today, but the fact that this beer is billed as an ‘imperial mild’ still raises a smile. Even if we accept the word ‘imperial’ as simply a synonym for ‘strong’, doesn't using an archival recipe suggest that this is just what mild was like at that time? Perhaps with two hip breweries involved, they felt they needed to give the beer a craft makeover.

The pour is a slightly hazy burnt orange, and spicy citrus fruit (more marmalade) and Cointreau aromas rise from the glass. Take a sip and the beer seems to slip around in your mouth, the alcohol revealing itself in a slick, viscous mouthfeel, and orange peel spiciness fizzes on the tongue. There are zesty, bitter grapefruit flavours too which suggest vigorous hopping, alongside savoury bread-like malt notes before a hot, boozy finish that recalls desert wine.

The alcohol is a little harsh for my tastes, and whilst I understand that milds aren't necessarily mild in strength, it’s a bit odd to place a beer that tastes like Fuller’s Golden Pride in amongst beers a third of its ABV. I enjoyed it well enough, but I think its best approached as a curiosity.

On an unrelated note, when I saw that gypsy brewer Evil Twin had collaborated with Beavertown, I assumed the beer was brewed at the London brewery. According to the bottle, though, it was brewed at Westbrook “for Evil Twin”. And, since the recipe wasn't original, I can’t help but wonder what either of the breweries who put their name on this beer actually did towards making it.

Thwaites Champion Dark Mild

I think of mild as primarily a dark beer, though it needn't necessarily be so, and so Thwaites Champion is much more what I expect from a mild than either of the previous beers. It pours a deep brown with deep red edges and beautiful, creamy off-white head which lasts throughout the glass. There’s very little on the nose save for a slightly unpleasant metallic note (I’m not drinking straight from the can, before you ask). Some berry sweetness makes itself apparent immediately, followed by malty caramel. There are some slightly vegetal hops in there, too, and a dry, quenching finish. The body is thin as you’d expect at 3.2% ABV, but that doesn't slip away in an unsatisfying away, instead demanding another thirsty glug. It’s not really a beer to think too hard about, designed as it is to be unchallenging but flavoursome, and it’s doing a good job in that respect. Probably tastes best on the fourth pint.

St. Peter’s Mild

Another dark-ish offering here, with a little red-brown hue. As I poured it into the glass, an intense fruit ‘n’ nut aroma wafted towards me, recalling Chimay Bleue. As I poked my nose in proper, all I got was caramel, and lots of it. Stout-like roast malt flavour jumps out on the first sip, suggesting liquorice or very dark roasted coffee. Again, there’s some dank, slightly vegetal hops which, even if it doesn’t sound it, is pleasant and adds depth of flavour, and the finish is dry and hugely burnt-tasting and bitter. It’s basically a variation on a stout – an astringent, roasty stout rather than a smooth chocolatey stout, and you certainly can’t accuse the brewery of failing to pack sufficient flavour into a low ABV beer. Given the choice, I’d take the subtlety of Thwaites’ version over this, which is maybe a bit too much of a bitter smack in the mouth to be really sessionable.

Golden pints 2015

After a couple of day's worth of extremely gruelling battles with Microsoft Word's "jazzy" formatting of my text - only resolved by typing the whole thing out again - I present my first ever Golden Pints round-up.

Best UK cask beer
The one cask beer that really knocked me out was Cloudwater's Special Edition IPA. Reportedly made with 22kg of hops per litre and yet surprisingly mellow drinking, this is the perfect example of the kind of 'tropical fruit juice IPA' that Mark Dredge identifies here. It may not be a style usually identified with cask, but this format is brilliantly suited to the beer, rounding out the hops and accentuating the juiciness. You know when you take a first sip of a beer and realise you'll always remember that moment? This was one of those.
Honourable mentions - Dark Star's American Pale Ale was a cask staple throughout the year - an important beer for me which continues to impress. Brighton Bier's cask offerings were a pleasure, too - they've become extremely accomplished at cramming juicy hop flavour into beers of moderate strength.

Best UK keg beer
Burning Sky's saison l'ete is a beautifully judged beer - tart and complex yet clean and refreshing, endlessly interesting but never hard work. Their seasonal saisons have always been good, but they're seemingly better year on year.
Honourable mentions - Other keg beers that stopped me in my tracks this year included Magic Rock's Cannonball and Siren's Life's a Peach peach cream IPA.

Best UK bottled beer
This category should go to a beer that actually benefits from the bottled format, rather than one that I only tasted in a bottle at home or that was only released in bottles but might have been even better on draught. Another shout out to Burning Sky, then, for their Vatted Porter. Quite ordinary when I tried it from keg, possibly because it was served far too cold, but the bottle was something else entirely - a beer whose mysterious flavours you chase with every sip, somehow eluding you and demanding another taste.
Honourable mentions - the second of BrewDog's Born to Die bottles, released in November, was one of the year's best overall beers - so fresh and vital.

Best UK canned beer
Fourpure Pils has almost constantly been in my fridge throughout 2015. I loved its assertive hop character and bitterness at first, but I swear it changed throughout the course of the year, becoming cleaner, less bitter and more floral with noble hops than before, and even better for it. I'm all for cans in principle, but the quality is still hugely variable - some beers I know to be excellent have really disappointed in this form. A beer that's consistently good in canned form is all the more commendable.
Honourable mentions - the aroma of tropical fruit on popping the tab on Vocations' Heart and Soul session IPA is inviting, and the flavour delivers, too. One of the best session-strength beers of the year.

Best overseas draught
I was lucky enough to travel a lot this year, and there are many contenders, but Schlenkerla Marzen straight from the barrel at their Bamberg pub is unbeatable.
Honourable mentions - I think about the house pils at Berlin's Eschenbrau brewpub shockingly often; its creamy body, bitterness and savoury depth of flavour, the gorgeous, tight, fluffy head which tastes of lemon pith. I'd give anything to have a litre in front of my right now.

Best overseas bottled beer
I loved 2015's Duvel Tripel Hop, this year with Equinox. When fresh, it was vibrant with lemon and hemp, and a little age allowed for a harmonious union with the classic Duvel taste.
Honourable mentions - Birrificio Sorrento's Syrentum - another beer that makes a virtue of the bottled format - made a lasting impression on my summer holiday this year. I tend to daydream about it a lot.

Best overseas canned beer
I can't think of any spectacular examples, but canned US IPAs seem to reach these shores in better shape than their bottled equivalents. Westbrook IPA, Oskar Blues' Pinner and Ska's Modus Hoperandi all vastly exceeded my expectations in the can.

Best collaboration brew
I only tried Magic Rock and Siren's MRS Brown in a bottle as the keg version was (understandably) prohibitively expensive, but it was a stunning beer. For an idea that sounds wacky on paper (bourbon-barrel aged imperial brown ale with pecan, maple syrup and vanilla), it all came together beautifully. Sipping a glass of this beer is a fun experience, exploring the flavours as they slowly reveal themselves one by one. Considering the attention paid to scandalously rare, imported barrel-aged stouts, by rights everyone should have been losing their shit over MRS Brown.

Best overall beer
Of those mentioned so far, it would be the Cloudwater cask IPA. But in truth, their DIPA was the best beer of any kind I tasted in 2015. Achievements like this suggest a shortening of the gap between the UK and the US, and it's extremely exciting.

Best branding, pump clip or bottle label
Something about the design for Thornbridge and Brouwerij 't IJ's American Wheat Ale is irresistible to me. Luckily, the beer is also very good. I loved the simplicity and elegance of the original Chorlton branding, and it's a shame they've now changed it. I also have to mention Hopvana from Guinea Pigs!, which I drank in Seville. Confronted with a fridge full of unfamiliar Spanish beers, I chose this purely because of the audaciously goofy label and ended up loving the beer.

Best UK brewery
Something tells me Cloudwater will be doing well out of this year's Golden Pints. The beers are excellent, the seasonal approach is original and really works, and they're making exactly the kinds of beers I want to drink, to the point where it's almost like they're reading my mind. UK hopped lager, cream ale, hopfenweisse, brown ale - these are all styles I wish more breweries were attempting.
Honourable mentions - The aformentioned Chorlton would have been my choice for brewery opening of the year, but I just checked and they actually opened in November 2014. Still, they've had a great run. Sour beers were a persistent trend throughout this year, but nobody took such an interesting and creative approach as Chorlton. The Woodruff Berliner weisse is a great example - a simple idea, but ingenious, and a great beer. They're also doing interesting stuff with yeast strains salvaged from DDR-era Berliner weisse bottles and canning their beers. I can't wait to see what they come out with in 2016.

Pub/bar of the year
I've always loved the Evening Star in Brighton, but throughout this year it's become the pub I visit the most. The beer list is always great, even better now that they've installed more keg lines, and the atmosphere is uniquely interesting whilst always hospitable and friendly. A proper pub serving a variety of great beer.
Honourable mentions - Visting Kulminator in Antwerp was a highlight of my beery year, even if I was unfortunately pushed for time. Just sitting in the cluttered bar, flicking through the jaw-dropping beer list and sipping on a draught Avec les bons veux was pretty much beer perfection.

Supermarket of the year
Marks & Spencers. Some of their new 'craft' range is god-awful, but some are excellent, especially where Adnams are involved, and they're the only supermarket stocking a good range of British craft beer. Yes, we all prefer to buy our beer from independents, but supermarket beers were an important step in my discovery of great beer, and I'm sure there are shoppers stumbling across Buxton and Fourpure in M&S and embarking on a wonderful beery journey.

Independent retailer of the year
It's still Trafalgar Wines and it always will be. They always have what I'm looking for, the prices are the best in the city and you've got to love the sheer unpretentiousness of the place - it's all about the beer here.

Online retailer of the year
I've only ever used Beers of Europe - it's good enough that I've never wanted to try anywhere else. The website can be a pain to navigate, but the range of (especially German and Belgian) beers is excellent, the delivery costs are reasonable and they get your order to you in no time.

Best beer book or magazine
Obviously it wasn't released this year, but Michael Jackson's Beer Companion has been constantly by my side this year, always an inspiration. The Best Beer in the World by Mark Dredge did come out this year, and was a great read from another writer who has been a massive inspiration to me. A far more interesting book than it sounds, its really the antidote to the proliferation of 'best beer' list books - a thoughtful meditation on what makes a beer great, giving equal attention to the Orval monastery and the 'proudly macro' Budweiser facility in St. Louis.

Best beer blog
I've lost many hours of my life to Ron Pattinson's Shut Up About Barclay Perkins this year. This stuff should be required reading for anyone with an interest in beer, even if many of the details in the table he's so fond of go right over my head.
Honourable mentions - Chris Hall writes eloquently and seriously about beer without veering into Pseud's Corner territory. Mark Johnson's output has been funny, insightful and affecting.

Simon Johnson award for Best Beer Twitterer
Twatty Beer Doodles, for a (very funny) taste of reality whenever the beer world takes itself too seriously.

The best beery advent calendar

Beer advent calendars are all over Twitter this year - it seems there's scarcely a small brewery or mail-order bottle shop that hasn't put one together, not to mention the bloggers working their way through them. The more restrained amongst them, such as the Beer O'Clock Show, won't start until the 20th, and open a bottle for each of the 12 days of Christmas. Some ambitious writers are well under way with a 24 bottle run - notably Mark Johnson, who has collected an impressive collection of all festive seasonals to work through (and, incidentally, these posts are a master class in tasting notes - superbly written).

I was lucky enough to enjoy a beer advent calendar last year. I didn't buy it, or assemble it myself - Sidony put it together for me. After a couple of months of all but swearing off beer so that I could actually afford to buy Christmas presents, the revelation of this collection was a practically religious moment. Here it is;

And it was a very tastefully selected calendar, too - all my favourite beers, some I had yet to try, and finishing up with some special bottles as the big day drew closer. Amazing as this was, I suggested that this year, we opted for more conventional calendars (I had also put together a gift-based calendar for Sidony last year). But there was still a surprise in store for me.

In January, we visited Bamberg. One of the many wonderful things about Bamberg, aside from the beer, is its love of tacky tourist merchandise. At the Schlenkerla tavern, the two tendencies collide in a merchandise stall in what looks like a converted broom cupboard selling everything from mini-kegs of Marzen to branded tote bags. On the 1st December, I was presented with this;

"Recognise that building?", Sidony asked. "Looks a bit like the Schlenkerla pub", I thought, but didn't say out loud. Except it is the Schlenkerla pub, and those masters of marketing have produced this pretty advent calendar with a tastefully illustrated Bamberg scene behind each door. I may not be able to drink it, but I'm still convinced that this is the best beery advent calendar doing the rounds this year.

A date with Darkness

Whilst I do my fair share of thinking about (and drinking) beer, I don’t really do very much beer-related stuff. I don’t even go to pubs as often as I probably should, never mind travelling the country to do so; I have never been to a tap takeover, beer dinner, or even a beer festival. There are many reasons for this, but after breaking this drought at Dark Star meet-the-brewer event at Brighton’s North Laine Brewhouse last week, I'm determined to change that pattern.

The North Laine is a great space – part US-style brewpub and restaurant, part Bavarian beer hall, and can hold a lot of people, so it’s great to see them putting their extra capacity to good use with events like these. As we arrive, there’s already a small group clustered around the hand pumps at the end of the bar. Initially, we’re greeted with bad news – Dark Star’s head brewer Andy Patterson is in bed with the flu and won’t be making it. Luckily, one of the other brewers, Amir (new to the brewery after stints at Beavertown and Hackney), and director Paul Reed are here instead.

These are exciting times for Dark Star. For as long as I've lived here, their beers have been ever-present on bars across Sussex, but their reach is far greater than that of a small regional brewery. Alongside the Partridge, near the brewery, and the Evening Star in Brighton, they’re looking to open several new pubs – the first site, in Horsham, is scheduled for early next year. They also reveal this evening that they've outgrown their facilities in Partridge Green and are starting to look for new, larger premises.

Equally exciting for me is the launch of their new seasonal – Rockhead, an American brown ale, and I dive straight into a pint as people continue to arrive. I’d tried this recently from keg at the Star and was very impressed – served this way, the body is full and creamy, thick without becoming hard work. The cask version this evening is even better – it’s in fantastic condition and the hops taste hugely fresh and vibrant without threatening to wash out the foundation of warming malt. This balance isn’t always there in US-hopped brown ales, which can often come off more like black IPAs, but at the base of Rockhead are all the flavours I’m looking for in the style – caramel, cola, a little chocolate. The only American hop here is Amarillo, which lends a peachy sweetness, whilst Australian-grown Citra and a trio of British fuggles, Goldings and Admiral bring citrus bitterness.

Once everyone’s here, Paul and Amir each give a brief talk, giving some background on the brewery and their range of beers. There’s a raffle draw, in which I win a pint – I choose Revelation, which tastes all the sweeter as it’s free. Amir tells us that they use a device called a ‘hoptimiser’ in making this beer – it’s like a giant tea bag which infuses the beer with hops without directly adding them, giving the beer a smoother quality. Makes sense to me – my pint is full of juicy hop flavour, but is in no way spiky or dry. It’s fantastic.

After some plates of food are brought out for everyone to share, we hear from Laine’s head brewer Nic Donald, who talks us through the beers made in-house here, along with a quick brewery tour. When Sidony asks a question about sour beer, he’s even generous to share a sample of a pink grapefruit beer, soured in the kettle with Greek yoghurt and a dunk from some grain sacks, that he’s brewed at one of the company’s London pubs. It’s very good and I’d be delighted to see something similar on offer at the North Laine.

Beer is, quite obviously, best in a social situation. That social situation needn't be anything more complicated than a group of people talking. Beer is also good at enabling such situations, and not only through its inhibition-lowering qualities. A glass of beer in everyone’s hand is a great leveller and conversation starter, and that’s why these kinds of events can offer as much to the greenest novice as they can to the hardened beer nerds. My new year’s resolution for 2016 ought to be to do more of this sort of thing.