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opinion

Golden Pints 2023 – the best pubs and beers of 2023

These end-of-year roundups are more fun to write than to read, aren’t they?

We feel the need to do it, though, to put a neat bow on the year.

It also forces us to reflect and remember rather than rushing through the checkpoint. Our constant refrain as we put these together is, “Wait, was that this year?”

And one important guiding principle is this: it doesn’t really matter, nobody really cares, don’t overthink it.

So there’s not always great science behind our choices. It’s about feeling more than facts.

The interior of The Swan With Two Necks with old wooden tables, red walls and a beer list on a blackboard.

Most visited in 2023

The pub we visited most in 2023 was The Swan With Two Necks in St Judes, an inner-city Bristol neighbourhood not far from the main shopping district.

It’s a ‘proper pub’ in the sense that chaos occasionally intrudes to make things interesting.

On one occasion we arrived shortly after someone had vomited everywhere leading to an immediate clear out of the premises. The Blitz spirit overtook those who remained. Then a mouse appeared and, high on floor cleaner, began to run in circles around the middle of the pub.

On another occasion snooker player and DJ Steve Davis was sitting at the bar. Well, fair enough.

And then there was the time someone asked the barman for a saw, hammer and nails and, between pints, made a wheelchair ramp out of a sheet of MDF.

It’s also handy-ish for the publess neighbourhood where we live, and a convenient place to meet friends from other corners of Bristol.

The back bar at Frueh em Veedel, with clutter including receipts, napkins, photos and enamel signs.

Best new-to-us pub in 2023

The place that immediately springs to mind is Früh em Veedel in Cologne:

“You might get a visit from a waiter, if they noticed you were empty before you did. Otherwise, it was a matter of plonking your empty at the right spot on the gleaming bar and picking up fresh beer at the same spot… It suited us, this less formal atmosphere, and we appreciated the peacefulness. The only sounds were the turning of the pages of a newspaper and the occasional conversation in concrete-thick Kölsch dialect between customers and barmen.”

“What, not Lommi?” The thing is, we found Früh em Veedel ourselves, and visited on a quiet weekday afternoon, all of which contributes to a certain sense of magic.

Perhaps when we go back again we won’t like it so much. Perhaps we were lucky to catch it at its most sleepy and charming.

If you visit in 2024, let us know what you think.

Best London pub in 2023

People keep asking and we keep saying “The Royal Oak at Borough”… but maybe not in 2024. Just before Christmas we visited The Lord Clyde, also in Borough, and it stole our hearts.

The Royal Oak has become brighter, tidier and more sparse, losing a little something in the process. But The Lord Clyde, despite also having recently changed hands, feels intimate and organic.

The beer is less exciting (Landlord, Pride) but beer isn’t everything.

We look forward to comparing these two pubs on further comparative visits in the next 12 months.

The exterior of The Kings Head, a narrow old-fashioned pub with a bay window.

Best pub for 2023

The refurbished Kings Head on Victoria Street in Bristol, now run by Good Chemistry, was also a pub we visited a lot in 2023. There are a few reasons for this:

  • it has out-of-town cask ale
  • it’s the prettiest historic pub interior in Bristol
  • other contenders have lost their edge

As we’ve discussed, it’s not always the first place we recommend to others because it is very small. It’s fun to watch stag and hen parties of 10 or 12 march in, completely fill the space, and then awkwardly about face when they realise there is no hidden extra room. What you see, those few seats and stools, is it.

But if you’re in a small party, or alone, you’d be a mug to miss it.

When we bumped into Kelly and Bob from Good Chemistry at an event in the autumn they mentioned that they were looking for another pub and our first thought was, “Oh, good.” They’re a safe pair of hands and know how to bring pubs into the 21st century without losing what makes them great.

The Lost & Grounded taproom with bare tables, bunting, and an illuminated sign that reads COLD LAGER.

Most drunk beer in 2023

We have to cheat here because, unlike with Bristol pub visits, Jess doesn’t keep a log. Recording every single pint on a spreadsheet would simply be a step too far.

We are, however, fairly confident that the beer we’ve ordered most often between us is Lost & Grounded Keller Pils.

It’s become a staple in Bristol pubs, if not the default ‘quality’ lager. And on our regular spring-summer visits to the Lost & Grounded taproom, where it’s at its freshest, we always try it, and often stick.

Now, this isn’t necessarily a wholehearted recommendation.

We were gutted when earlier this year someone told us they’d gone out of their way to try it but found it disappointing. As we keep saying, but perhaps not loudly enough, it has been wildly inconsistent – though less so in 2023. And it’s at its best when fresh.

Think of it more like the product of a Bavarian village brewery, rather than a Camden Hells competitor, and it might make more sense.

The Five Points taproom in Hackney, with outdoor seating in front of an industrial building.

Best beer 2023

Here’s how this award works: every time one of us reacts very positively to a beer, it triggers a debate. If we both agree the beer in question is remarkably good, Jess adds it to a list of beer-of-the-year contenders, with tasting notes. Then, in December, we review that list and interrogate our feelings.

The contenders this year were:

  • Cheddar Gorge Best, at The Merchants Arms, Bristol BS8
  • Harvey’s Porter, at The Royal Oak, London SE1
  • Five Points Railway Porter, at a couple of pubs in London
  • New Bristol Brewery Knopperz stout at their taproom
  • La Birrofila Prima Pils in Milan
  • St Austell Anthem, in Falmouth and again at The Merchants Arms
  • Five Points Gold at the Pembury Tavern, London E8
  • Zero Degrees Italian Pilsner, at Zero Degrees Bristol
  • Lost & Grounded 10 Years on Land (landbier) at the L&G taproom
  • Moor Brewing Smoked Lager at the Moor taproom

After much debate, we’re giving this one to Five Points Gold. We remember this session fondly and especially the feeling of being unable to leave the pub, or move onto any other beer. As we wrote back in September:

We love some Five Points beers (Railway Porter, the sadly defunct Pils, and Pale) but don’t get on with their Best Bitter. We find it muddy and confused. Gold, we assumed, would be like that, but more watery (it’s 3.4%) and less interesting… But, blimey, it was good. We spent quite a bit of time thinking about Boddington’s and Young’s Ordinary as they were in the past – very pale, very bitter, mysteriously alluring.

A pint of pale beer on a pub table with Thornbridge beer mats.

Best brewery 2023

Judging this was difficult but we went back to the principle that our emotional response is where the truth lies. And the truth is that when we walk into a pub and see a Thornbridge beer on the bar, we get excited: oh, yes, this is going to be good!

Jaipur IPA in particular continues to delight us as both a cask ale and keg beer

 And Lukas knocked our socks off in, of all places, a steakhouse in London where we went for a family event.

A glass of Westmalle Tripel in a busy Belgian bar.

Best beer of all time

For the record, the tide might be turning against Westmalle Tripel.

It’s a beer we always have in the house (minimum requirement: one in the stash, one in the fridge) and love deeply

 But in 2023, we found ourselves feeling increasingly affectionate towards De Ranke XX Bitter. And De la Senne Taras Boulba. And Augustiner Helles.

For now, though, it is still Westmalle.

The attractive, colourful cover of Desi Pubs by David Jesudason.

Best book of 2023

There have been some interesting books published this year, going beyond broad overviews and beginner’s introductions.

Guides to specific cities and types of pubs, for example, or studies of particular aspects of beer culture and history. Many of them have been published by CAMRA, or self-published.

The winner for us, and almost by popular agreement, it seems, is Desi Pubs by David Jesudason. As we wrote in our review in June:

“Overall, this is one of the most exciting books about beer and pubs to have been released in recent years… We hope for, and expect, a new edition every couple of years, as more Desi pubs are found, or founded.”

A Guinness branded bottle opener and two crown caps.
One of the objects Liam has written about on his blog, a 1970s (?) Guinness bottle opener.

Best beer blog in 2023

The blog that’s most consistently made our weekly round-ups this year has been powered by an ambitious project, which is always our tip for reigniting and fuelling beer blogs. The project is ‘100 Years of Irish Brewing in 50 Objects’, the blog is IrishBeerHistory, and the blogger is Liam K.

It’s been great watching the bones of a book emerge in real time, and seeing Liam challenge the fog of marketing-driven romanticism that clouds Irish brewing history. He’s up to item 15 so there’s plenty more to come yet.

And just for added spice, he also throws in the occasional piece of pub-focused fiction or poetry, proving he’s not totally opposed to a good story.

Final reminder: we’re done with Twitter

As we explained in our most recent newsletter we’re going to stop posting on Twitter (X, if we must) from 1 January 2024. If you want to chat, find us on another platform or two. Social media is in flux. Who knows if it will survive, or which platform might eventually host the bulk of the conversation. But we’re pretty certain it won’t be there.

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Generalisations about beer culture

Golden Pints 2022: notes on an almost normal year

Which beers and pubs have we enjoyed most during 2022? It’s never an easy question to answer, but pondering is half the fun.

It goes without saying that this is a personal list. We can’t take into account beers we didn’t have, or places we didn’t go.

There’s also an element of compromise when you’re working in a partnership. We’ve noted where we had differences of opinion in a couple of different places.

We’re going to start with the best pub and work our way up to what, we suppose, is the top award – Best Beer.

Best pub

We don’t have a local these days, or even one go-to pub within a reasonable walking distances. The Swan With Two Necks has become a favourite, and the relaunched King’s Head might become one. We decided not to overthink it and name a pub we wish was our local: The Union in Nether Edge, Sheffield. It’s not a pub we’d necessarily tell people to go out of their way to get to but the experience of drinking there was wonderful.

Best new or relaunched pub

You might have guessed this from the paragraph above. The King’s Head in Bristol, near Temple Meads station was shut for three years and has now reopened under the stewardship of Good Chemistry. After two visits, we’re quite besotted: Edwardian signage, dark wood, interesting beer, ten-sided pint glasses… The only problem is that it’s so small you don’t stand a chance of finding a seat if there are more than about 20 people in.

Best beer shop

We’re fascinated by Pat’s News and Booze, our local specialist off licence. It’s not a fancy bottle shop but the kind of place you buy lottery tickets and vape juice. It also just happens to have an incredible range of canned craft beer from breweries such as Vault City and Yonder.

Best beer city

In the UK, it’s probably still Sheffield, although we also always enjoy a trip to London where you can find anything you want if you know where to look. But we can’t stop thinking about Cologne which we now realise has exactly the right drinking culture for us, with our limited capacity for booze and love of German beer. You can read more about this in our post called ‘Impressions of Cologne: one beer, but it’s more complicated than that’.

Best beer writer

Earlier this year we said we thought David Jesudason was the most likely winner of the British Guild of Beer Writers beer writer of the year award. (He wasn’t, but it was close.) So it’s probably no surprise that he’s our choice this year. He’s got his beat – Desi pubs, and the British Asian experience as it relates to beer – and keeps finding new angles within that. He finds great stories and isn’t afraid to be challenging. We’re looking forward to his book immensely.

You might also want to check out our list of best beer writing of 2022. It includes 20 pieces that made our weekly round-ups

Best beer book

Someone needed to write about working men’s clubs and Pete Brown was the right man to do it. We really enjoyed reading Clubland and learned a lot from it. It’s going to be our go-to reference on this subject from now on.

Best cask ale

We had a bit of a moment here, looking back over our notes for the year, and realising that all the cask ales we’d loved were well-established classics. We’ve enjoyed faultless Fuller’s ESB, astonishing St Austell Proper Job, fantastic Butcombe Original, vivid Oakham Citra, and fabulous Fyne Ales Jarl… It feels weird to say this having left it behind in Cornwall but the one we both agreed on was St Austell Proper Job. Wherever we’d drunk it, from London to Pensford, it’s made us smile.

Best keg beer

Most of the candidates for ‘beer of the year’ we jotted down happened to be keg beers, even though we’re cask drinkers by default. Jess lobbied hard for Siren Pompelmocello, a grapefruit sour which our notes describe as “somehow tasting like Tokaj”. And Ray made the case for Left Handed Giant Weizen, which he liked so much he stuck with it on two separate sessions weeks apart. But the one we both agreed on was Newtown Park Leading Lines, an American-style brown ale. It packed a lot of character into 6% with a lot of pine and citrus – the kind of thing we’d have loved to drink at The Rake in about 2009. It’s a shame the brewery is now winding up.

Best bottled or canned beer

It’s always Westmalle Tripel, of course, but for the sake of variety, Taras Boulba from Brasserie de la Senne has become our other by-the-case beer. It’s dry, bitter, spicy and fresh. There’s a touch of funk, too. You can put a splash in a boring beer and it brings it to life, like seasoning. Spending some time in Brussels this year, and visiting the brewery especially, helped us decide. We’ve got a crush on Brasserie de la Senne, simple as that.

Best beer

Overall, it has to be Newtown Park Leading Lines. That red tinted, redwood forest, forest moon of Endor style is just irresistible to us.

Best brewery

There were a couple of contenders here. Do we name breweries that are forces for good, and do the right thing? Doesn’t the brewery that makes the best beer automatically get best brewery? In the end, we decided, almost a bit to our own surprise, to give the award to Siren. It’s slowly become a brewery whose beers we’re always pleased to see on offer and who, thanks to a constant presence at The Swan With Two Necks, have featured in our ‘beer of the week’ round-ups on Patreon more than most. Their Caribbean Chocolate Mole Cake stout was another strong beer of the year contender.

If you want to steal the image above for your own Golden Pints post, go for it. If you write a Golden Pints list, please also feel free to post a link below, whether it’s on social media, a blog, or wherever.

Categories
beer reviews

Boak & Bailey’s Golden Pints for 2021

We don’t need to tell you that it’s been yet another strange old year, which makes passing judgement tricky.

We’ve been to pubs, but not as often as we would in any normal year.

And our choice of pubs has been dictated by how handy they are to get to, along with weird criteria such as cleanliness and ventilation.

Cask ale has been on the menu but for a large chunk of the year, it came in takeaway containers – is that a fair way to assess it?

We haven’t been abroad since autumn 2019 and our intake of foreign beer has been dictated by what’s available in local shops, or by mail order.

But, still, all that has given us room to think and make (ugh) mindful choices.

We’ve also really appreciated the beers we have been able to enjoy in pleasant surroundings, with anything like a hint of a normal atmosphere.

As always, we’ve chosen our own categories, deviating from the master list set down a decade ago. Let’s get into them.

Lost and Grounded.

Beer of the year

Lost & Grounded Running With The Spectres Baltic porter takes the crown.

It really is a great beer, and consistently so. We can’t go to the taproom without having at least one half pint per session (it’s 6.8%).

We also enjoyed it from the can at home and on draught at The Elmers Arms, where it was so good we ended up having several, hangovers be damned.

We’d also like to encourage more breweries to make strong but straightforward (that is, not pastrified) stouts and porters. Years on, we’re still haunted by the majesty of Fuller’s Past Masters 1910 Double Stout, basically, and want more of that kind of thing in our lives.

Kirkstall taproom.

Brewery of the year

It’s Kirkstall Brewery of Leeds.

e were in the city for a week and drank more Kirkstall than anything else.

The beer range was excellent, from superior takes on trad styles to really out-there stuff that could put an East End railway arch brewer to shame.

The quality and consistency was enough to take us back to the taproom when we could have been ticking other pubs.

It will also probably be enough to take us back to Leeds sooner rather than later.

The Pembury Tavern

Pub of the year

It’s The Pembury Tavern in Hackney, East London.

In various degrees of restriction and confinement, we often dreamt of being there. When we could get to London, we went out of our way to visit, and then we stayed for at least two more beers than we’d planned.

It has a great range of beer in fabulous condition, and is simultaneously somehow spacious and cosy.

Takeaway pub of the year

A special category for this year and, please, let’s hope only this year.

When lockdown kicked back in at the start of this year, when pubs were closed even for takeaway, The Drapers’ Arms went above and beyond and started offering a delivery service of cask beer sourced from a selection of local breweries.

So, throughout the craziness of winter and spring, we had access to cask ale, some of it new to us. They even delivered to our new house once we’d moved.

Fuller's 1845
SOURCE: Fuller’s

Packaged beer of the year (that isn’t Westmalle Tripel)

It’s Fuller’s 1845.

Everything about it sings autumn-winter warmth.

We ploughed through the eight bottles we ordered and if it wasn’t for the fact that we are actively trying to support smaller breweries over multinationals, we would have ordered another case immediately.

If you’ve not had it in a while, do give it another try.

Kirkstall Brewery sign

Bonkers beer of the year

Another new category.

Though most of the time we like to drink fairly conservative styles, every now and then we crave something silly. And we’ve had some good stuff this year.

The standout was Gelato Tropicale, an Ice cream sour from Kirkstall Brewery, which tasted like rhubarb and custard in an utterly addictive way. Subtly sour, subtly sweet, it was beautifully balanced, in its own mad way.

If they hadn’t had so many other good beers on we’d have drunk more of it but, as it is, it earned a lot of oohs and aahs, and a repeat order.

Westmalle Extra
SOURCE: James Clay & Sons

Foreign beer of the year

Westmalle Tripel continues to be the Best Beer in the World, but this year we were also introduced to Westmalle Extra, which we think delivers about 80% of the flavour with considerably less chance of a hangover, at 4.8%. So it’s that.

An old map of Brussels.

Blogger of the year

As with last year, a massive shout out to anyone who’s managed to blog regularly, or at all, in this strange, distracting, disconcerting year. You are all stars.

But the gong goes to Eoghan Walsh, who has managed to conceive of and stick with a fantastic blogging project.

We’ve ended up linking to his pieces in our Saturday round-ups most weeks as a result, even though it feels like a cheat to do so.

The cover of Modern British Beer

Book of the year

We really like Modern British Beer by Matt Curtis.

It’s a useful guide book, nicely written and designed, which does one job really well: telling us what’s worth drinking right here, right now.

A longer version of this post previously appeared on Patreon, including notes on runners-up and contenders. As ever, thanks to subscribers for encouraging us to keep at it.

Categories
beer reviews

Our Golden Pints for 2020

You know how Sonic the Hedgehog is one of the highest grossing movies of 2020? Our Golden Pints this year is going to be a bit like that.

We’d usually have got about a bit – maybe a trip to Sheffield or Manchester, a day or two out in Cardiff, perhaps a couple of weekends in towns or cities completely new to us.

This year, however, the extent of our exploring has been:

  • Stockport in January
  • Stroud in February
  • A couple of trips to London in the summer
  • Broadstairs in September

Having been reluctant to use public transport, we’ve barely even been able to explore Bristol and only managed 12 entries in #EveryPubInBristol.

What we did do was drink a fair bit of beer, albeit mostly on the sofa or in the weird little mock pub we constructed in our front room, and we’ve managed to muster a few opinions. It made life bearable but… It’s not the same, is it?

On top of all that, being critical of any business in the midst of this catastrophe feels like bad behaviour. Everything is ten times harder than usual but, between supply problems, the challenges of delivery and complicated, ever-changing restrictions, it’s no wonder if things have wobbled.

Anyway, let’s get down to business.

Best Bristol pub

It’s still the Drapers Arms, even though we haven’t sat in to drink since March.

Thanks to the takeaway offer, we still manage to visit twice a week, and there were points when a two-minute chat with Zee, Vince, Garvan or another regular in the distanced queue felt like a life-saving social interaction.

We’re moving house soon, to another part of Bristol, and have already scoped out our route for popping back for pints at least once or twice each month.

Best pub beyond Bristol

It only really feels fair to judge pubs we visited under pre-lockdown conditions so, for that reason, we’re giving this award to the Prince Albert in Stroud.

We only visited four pubs in Stroud and it felt as if there were plenty more to see but when we go back, we’ll definitely hike up the hill for a return visit to this one.

It wears its left-wing heart on its sleeve (posters for radical walking groups and all that) but was also a cosy, pubby pub and, perhaps because of the ruddy great hill that keeps outsiders away, had a village feel, too. Like the Plough in Easton transplanted to the Cotswolds.

Best cask beer

When we drank Karst by Cheddar Ales back in early March we thought, oy oy, and noted it as a contender for Beer of the Year. We were similarly impressed when we had it again in October.

It’s a rye beer, and whereas a lot of these tend towards the harsh or medicinal, this is perfectly put together. Almost treacly but not overly sweet, it manages to balance both liquorice and peach notes while still tasting like a well-rounded, beery beer.

Best bottled beer (that isn’t Westmalle Tripel)

Keeping things Belgian, as most years, the splendid bottle of Pannepot Special Reserve that we had in early November was an overall highlight of the year.

We’ve had a rollercoaster ride with de Struise beers over the years being bowled over on first encounter but having found them muddy on more recent encounters. The Special Reserve is an absolute triumph though.

It smells like Harvey’s Imperial Stout – oaky and ancient. It tastes of treacle, wine and rum and raisin ice cream. Will subsequent bottles taste the same? Who knows. But that one bottle, at that one moment – magic.

Best lockdown beers

Here’s a new category to recognise the reliable and reliably uplifting beers that we ended up ordering on multiple occasions.

It’s fair to say that Westmalle Tripel found its way into our kitchen more frequently even than usual.

Slightly closer to home (actually, it isn’t, it’s about 20 miles further away, according to Google) we greatly enjoyed ordering mini-kegs of Fyne Ales Jarl. Not only is it a great beer but it was also impeccably packaged, each home-drawn pint taking us back to happy sessions in Glasgow.

Best brewery

Everything we’ve had from them has been very good and some have been outstanding. They’ve got a great range of styles and everything is well executed. It’s Cheddar Ales.

Best beer blogger

First, we want to express our respect for anyone who’s managed to write anything beer-related this year. Even with two of us and half an archive in our spare room, we struggled at times to generate the energy to produce anything whatsoever. So if you did write something, well done you. Give yourself a pat on the back.

We normally allocate this award by looking at the people we’ve linked to the most in our weekly roundups. However, this misses out someone who we don’t link to very much because his content is almost entirely beer reviews, not news or commentary – yes, it’s the ever-punning Beer Nut. We’ve been particularly grateful for the constant stream of business-as-usual, non-plague-related content this year.

Best beer book

There have been some great books published this year but, for sheer ambition and importance, it has to be The Lost Art of Farmhouse Brewing by Lars Marius Garshol. You can read our full review here.

Best beer publication

We wanted to underline how impressed we’ve been by Pellicle this year. Editors Matt Curtis and Jonny Hamilton have made such an obvious effort to make room for new voices, commission pieces that come at the subject from new angles and, crucially, to pay people for their work. The fact that something from Pellicle has appeared in our weekly round-up most weeks speaks for itself. We’re supporting them via Patreon; you might consider doing the same.

Now round-up and reflection season has begun, you can expect to see our regular summaries of our own best writing, our favourite bits by others and maybe something highlighting the best Tweets of the year, if we find time.

Categories
beer reviews

Our Golden Pints of 2019

It must be the end of the year… Wait, no, the end of the decade – because here we are, once again, debating which pubs and beers we want to declare The Best of 2019.

It gets easier, this, when it’s a habit. Throughout the year we find ourselves saying to each other: “Could this be a contender?” We keep notes, we check-in every now and then, and so half the post half-written by October.

It also helps that we’ve been reporting to our Patreon supporters on the best beers of each weekend most weeks and so have a decent record of what really impressed us.

As last year, though, it’s amazing how often that’s The Usual Suspects – Young’s Ordinary, St Austell Proper Job, Dark Star Hophead, Bass, Oakham Citra or JHB, Titanic Plum Porter, Hop Back Summer Lightning… Classics, in other words.

Bristol Beer Factory might have won more awards if its range was a bit more stable. As it is, the many excellent but barely distinguishable pale-n-hoppy cask ales we enjoyed from them never seem to be on sale with any regularity to we never quite get to know them.

Now, then – the awards.

The Drapers Arms -- a table with beer and filled rolls.

Best Bristol pub – The Drapers Arms

Yes, again, but how could it be anything else? We go at least once every week, usually more like twice or three times, and it’s got to the point where we can’t be remotely objective about it. It’s also become a kind of office for us – somewhere to meet visitors to Bristol, such as the charming Texans we got sloshed with in the summer. And we’ve never felt more like part of the community than when our neighbours responded to Jess’s call for apples.

Runner-up: The Good Measure.


The Laurieston.

Best non-Bristol pub – The Laurieston, Glasgow

A historic building with period decor is obviously exciting but when the beer is also great, and the service, and the atmosphere, you’ve got a winner.

Runner-up: The Waterloo, Shirley, Southampton.


Au Stoemelings.

Best overseas bar – Au Stoemelings, Brussels

This is a fairly basic bar with what, by Belgian standards, a bog standard beer list, but we loved it because (a) we found it ourselves and (b) it felt so real. We got the impression that if we’d sat in the corner for a week, we’d have come away with material for an 800-page novel.

Runner-up: Cafe Botteltje, Ostend.


Best cask beer – Five Points Pale Ale

When it came on at The Drapers, we couldn’t stop drinking it, and nor could Ray’s parents. On multiple occasions, we schlepped across London to The Pembury determined to drink it. Softness, fruitiness, peachy goodness… It’s a great beer.

Runner-up: Bath Ales Prophecy.


Best bottled beer – Westmalle Tripel

We barely drink bottled beer these days but this one… This is irresistible. Still the best beer in the world.

Runner-up: Augustiner Helles.


Best keg beer – Bristol Beer Factory White Label

A 3.3% pale ale with Belgian yeast is more or less the perfect concept and this particular example really delivered. One of those beers we marked up as CONTENDER? In about May and revisited a couple of times thereafter.

Runner-up: Bristol Beer Factory Banoffee Pies.


Best beer overall – Five Points Pale Ale

See above. And the fact is, cask ale is what we like best.


Best brewery – Stroud

We thought long and hard about this but, looking back over a year’s-worth of notes, saw Stroud’s name popping up time and again in the Beers of the Weekend posts on Patreon. This award, we think, has to be about consistency as much as moments of brilliance and the facts is that we’re always relieved to see their name on the board at The Drapers. Their Budding has become a go-to bitter, too. But there’s plenty to get excited about, too: towards the end of the year, they produced a stunning, irresistible cask Rauchbier.

Runner-up: Moor.


Best blog – Tandleman

One of the last of the old school, blogging for the sake of blogging, drinking beer and visiting pubs not many others notice, writing with a voice so strong it nearly knocks you off your feet.

Runner-up: Bring on the Beer


Best beer Twitter – The Beer Nut @TheBeerNut

Again. Possibly forever. Who knows.

Runner-up: Jezza @BonsVoeux1