Tag: Golden Pints

Our golden pints for 2024

Every year we share a list of our favourite beers and pubs as part of a lingering beer blogging tradition called ‘The Golden Pints’.

It was a big thing a decade or so ago but hardly anyone does it these days. That’s a shame because, like The Session, it was a fun thing that contributed to a sense of community.

We stick at it because we find it a useful summary of what was hot and what was not in wach passing year.

Back in 2015, for example, Brewdog Electric India was our bottled beer of the year – a beer we’d forgotten ever existed. And in 2012 we declared the Blue Anchor in Helston our brewery of the year – a reminder of a very different time in our lives.

This year, we’ve made a real effort to get to more pubs, and try more new-to-us beers. We’ve also been taking note of our emotional responses to certain beers and breweries: which ones make us say “Oh, great!” when we see their brands on the bar?

Before we get stuck in, a quick note on the categories: these used to be fixed, and set by the ‘admins’, which made it easier to compare the results across many blogs and find the popular vote winners. Now, we more or less do what we like.

If you want to write your own golden pints post, though, you’re very welcome to use our post as a template, and steal the graphic above, too, if you like.

Right, let’s do this.

The Five Points taproom.

Best cask ale

We had quite a debate about this one. You might remember that last year we made Five Points Gold our beer of the year and, in so doing, took a side swipe at Five Points Best: “We find it muddy and confused.”

Well, guess what? Either it’s got better, or we’ve changed, because Five Points Best is a beer we’ve really fallen in love with this year.

As we wrote on Patreon back in October:

“On the face of it, it’s a really traditional bitter, but there are a few tweaks that make it next level good. There’s a honeyed, biscuityness in the malt; and a slice of orange, Fuller’s style, alongside the hard bitterness. If we were going to make comparisons it would be something like Bathams, or the various Boddington’s clones we’ve had over the years. But like Bathams, it also tastes like its own thing.”

Honourable mentions: Bass, of which we’ve enjoyed many pints this year; Cheddar Ales Gorge Best, partly for sentimental reasons; Fuller’s ESB, which, when it’s good, is very good.

Lost & Grounded.

Best keg beer

This feels like a bit of a throwback category from the days of the cask versus keg wars. We do tend to default to cask but in some of our favourite pubs in Bristol – The Swan With Two Necks, The Kings Head – the keg selection is often extremely tempting. And at the Lost & Grounded taproom, where we end up most Friday evenings, it’s keg (almost) all the way.

A beer we both loved, and were excited to drink, and were gutted to see disappear from the menu, was Lost & Grounded Newstalgic 8, a West Coast Pilsner at 5.2%. Here’s what we wrote in our notes in July:

“We’ve been drinking this wonderful beer at the taproom for the past couple of weekends. It’s confusingly listed on the printed menu as a West Coast IPA but it’s definitely a lager – albeit a distinctly zingy, bitter, flowery one. It’s ultra pale and looks gorgeous in a German-style Willibecher glass with a few inches of foam. If you liked the much-missed Five Points Pils, you’ll also enjoy this.”

Honourable mentions: Torrside Franconia Rauchbier; Moor Smoked Lager; Moor Elmoor Belgian-style pale ale.

Best packaged beer

We’ve been trying hard to drink in pubs and consume less booze at home. Our ‘cellar’ (the corner where we keep some beer crates) is mostly stocked with Belgian beer (Westmalle Tripel, Orval) and German lager (Augustiner Helles, Jever, Schlenkerla Helles).

From the supermarket, we’ve occasionally picked up bottles of Schneider Weisse and Duvel, or cans of Thornbridge Jaipur.

So, have there been any standouts? Well, again, we have to shout out Lost & Grounded whose canned Hop Hand Fallacy Witbier is convincingly Belgian, fresh, and zesty.

Best overall beer

Our overall beer of the year is Five Points Best. We’re cask drinkers by default, that was the best cask beer we had this year, so what else could it be?

Best brewery

This was another category that prompted a lot of pondering. One brewery sprang immediately to mind not because its beers were the best we had – though they are very good – but because we were so consistently delighted to see them on offer. And that is Cheddar Ales.

We’ve always liked them but in the past year or so have come to regard them as a sign of a publican who knows what they’re doing. They’re often on at The Merchant’s Arms in Hotwells, at The Bank in the centre of Bristol, and now at The Crown in St Judes. A range of clean, well made beers in a range of styles, served in good condition, is all we really want.

Honourable mentions: Five Points, of course; Thornbridge, whose beer we’ll go out of our way to drink; and reliable old Butcombe.

Best pub

We decided The Swan With Two Necks in St Judes, Bristol, was going to be our local and have been trying to go at least once a week for the past year.

We’ve now seen it in all its moods, from Friday night riot to sleep Sunday chillout zone, and find ourselves very attached to it.

It’s also the pub we recommend to visitors because it’s somewhere they might not go without a nudge, and because when we take friends there, they tend to love it. We’re not saying it’s perfect but it works for us.

Honourable mentions: The Kings Head, Victoria Street, Bristol, which would be our local if it was a little closer, and if we could rely on finding space to sit; The Pembury Tavern, our London local; The Evening Star Brighton, which we revisited in February and loved… Oh, look, we could go on. Pubs are just great.

Best non-pub boozer

By which we mean taprooms, bars and cafes. The Lost & Grounded taproom has this one easily. It’s beginning to feel more and more pub-like as the years pass. The team behind the bar is great. There’s almost always one beer that’s new to us, and at least one standard beer that’s on top form. It’s not the cheapest place to drink but still tends to feel like good value because the beer is so beautifully presented.

Honourable mentions: It was nice to get one session in at the Good Chemistry taproom this year – another quite pub-like space.

Best beer book

CAMRA publishing continues its streak with Dr. Christina Wade’s The Devil’s in the Draught Lines: 1,000 years of women in Britain’s beer history. We wrote a full review of this book in which we said:

“If you want to understand the deeper history of brewing in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, it’s a readable survey of previous research. And it’s a must-read if you want your world view shaken up a little – something which is good for all of us to do from time to time.”

Fagans, Dublin, photographed by Lisa Grimm.

Best beer blogger

We’ve done a separate list of our favourite blog posts and articles – a version of news, nuggets and longreads that wraps up the whole year. But here we want to recognise someone who has posted consistently throughout the year and created an evolving composite picture of the drinking scene in Dublin. That is, Lisa Grimm, and her Weirdo Guide to Dublin Pubs project. It’s frequently featured in our weekly round-ups, or in the bonus links in the footnotes to those posts we share on Patreon.

It’s also a great example of how to create and sustain a blog: pick a topic, or give yourself a mission; find a format; research, write, post, repeat. Anyone can do this! You should do this.

Honourable mentions: We frequently refer to Martin Taylor’s blog when we’re trying to work out where to drink and, like Lisa, he’s consistent in posting, and has a clear project. And the Beer Nut continues to write the best tasting notes in the game, with a new post almost every day.

Tags Golden Pints

opinion

Golden Pints 2023 – the best pubs and beers of 2023

Post author By Boak & Bailey
Post date 27th December 2023
11 Comments on 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.

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.

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

Tags Golden Pints, golden pints 2023

Generalisations about beer culture

Golden Pints 2022: notes on an almost normal year

Post author By Boak & Bailey
Post date 20th December 2022

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.

Tags Golden Pints, golden pints 2022

beer reviews

Boak & Bailey’s Golden Pints for 2021

Post author By Boak & Bailey
Post date 28th December 2021
1 Comment on 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Tags Golden Pints, goldenpints2021

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.

Tags Golden Pints, GoldenPints2020