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| The Friends & Family & Beer Festival |
This has been even longer
coming than anticipated but we cannot move properly into 2020 until it is
complete. Plus, celebrating the positives happens but once a year (twice if you
count the number of posts this has taken.)
Post number one is here and
explained my break from traditional Golden Pints. I’ve tried to keep some of
the details as brief as possible as it is a long list but here are my mentions
for my favourite breweries, events, spaces and beer media from 2019.
Breweries
Burning Sky
It seems nearly unnecessary to mention Burning Sky
in such accolades but I have somehow contrived to overlook them in previous
years. Perhaps surprisingly best known for their 750ml mixed fermented
specials, they have also had perfect cask offerings for years. That I chose to spend much of Indy Man drinking only their beers speaks volumes
but also comes as little surprise. Unrivalled
Yonder Brewing & Blending
Perhaps I don’t write more about breweries that
specialise in certain styles because there is a fear that I’m going to use
the wrong terminology that older fans of the styles are more accustomed to. Now I know how beginner's to this culture feel. Even so, as mentioned in Part 1 of these Golden Pints, 2019 saw a huge shift in
my beer drinking towards breweries specialising in (what I would describe as)
Wild and Mixed Fermentation beers or Farmhouse brewing.
Whether I use the correct lexicon or not, Yonder
quickly established themselves as my surprise love from the last 12 months. A
few years ago, the descriptions of their styles alone wouldn’t have interested
me, but in July I found myself venturing to Manchester two Saturdays in a row to
drink through Yonder tap takeovers at Northern Monk MCR and Port Street Beer
House respectively. If I saw them more frequently, Fermhouse Pale could become
a regular favourite. I can’t wait to see how they continue to develop.
Wilderness Brewing
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| Wilderness pop-up at Beer Nouveau |
It was the Independent Salford Beer Festival that
first made me aware of this small Welsh farmhouse brewery. Again, their styles
wouldn’t have appealed much to me long ago but now they are amongst some of my
favourite beers. I was straight to Manchester when they brought a small pop up
to Beer Nouveau in the middle of the year. James has a great story and I expect
to hear them mentioned more and more through 2020.
Little Earth Project
“Everything I have had from Little Earth Project
has been outstanding and yet I do not rush to buy their beers. I must rememdy
that.” I tweeted this in the Spring of 2019 and did go about fixing this
oversight through the rest of the year. In addition, they have helped me understand - and allow - the term terroir in reference to beer much more. One of the best
in the land.
Verdant Brewing Co
Shock. Horror. I never thought I’d see the day.
After plenty of indifference to Instagram’s favourite soup makers since their
inception, 2019 was the year I finally *got* Verdant. The beers went from
tasting unfinished to being the best examples of the hazy IPA style in the
country. I rated a fair few of them quite highly – There's Always Tomorrow being a highlight. Interesting that I’ve seen a few of the Forum fools
say that Verdant hadn’t been as good recently when they are miles better. *Insert Daenerys sceptical face here.*
North Riding Brewery
A mention for the north’s best cask beer producers,
especially as I seem to have forgotten to laud them in previous years. They
were even more important in 2019 as my local was going through a... let’s
say transitional period where lots of the previously enjoyed
Greater Manchester favourites have been forgotten for lesser
variations. These days of disappointment have been punctuated by ones of joy
when North Riding hits the bar and every single patron laps it up and stays for
extra beer until the cask runs dry. I’ve always enjoyed North Riding but this
year they have been a deity around my way.
Moor Beer Co
I don't use Untappd
religiously but I do try to keep as up-to-date as I can just because it helps
to have a prompt and record of often forgotten facts. Moor are here because
they should be, but also because that was apparent from my records on the much maligned app. When filtering my
scores over 2019 down to 4.5 ratings and above, they were one of only three breweries to
feature more than three times - for Nor'Hop, Hoppiness, Smoked Lager and Old
Freddy Walker. Of course, three of those have been favourites of mine for some years but it was within the last 12 months that I was reminded of that.
Pubs, Bars & Brewery Taps
The Harp (London)
The occasional issue with social media is that a
place can be billed so highly prior to visiting that it leads to disappointing
confusion on eventual visit. That happened to me on a couple of visits to
a well thought of pub in Hackney that I simply felt no affinity towards. Perhaps it was
over egged and that a blind visit would have turned up a different opinion.
Regardless, there are times when this disappointment
is not apparent and this happened on my (shockingly) very first visit to The
Harp in London. Some pubs instantly feel like home, as though this has been the
local at the end of your street for all time. It may have helped that both visits
occurred on a Sunday and Tuesday afternoon, when the bar area was a little quiter, but put it down as the very first pub
from the capital to join the “must-visit” pile for every future trip to
London.
City Arms (Manchester)
It has been a slow year for Manchester. Whilst the
list of new venues I want to visit this year in Leeds continues to grow, I
can’t think of anywhere beyond the new Brewdog Outpost to open on this side of the
Pennines. We like to languish. So it was time to rely on some old haunts.
The City Arms has been relegated in recent years, by my own mentality, to
pubs my dad liked, along with other old favourites such
as The Castle or Rising Sun. Stupid really, when you consider how much I
(supposedly) like old pubs. In 2019 though it became my go-to for a city centre
pint and regularly has one of the best cask line-ups in the city. It is a
regular stockist of Neptune Brewery, who I don’t see in Greater Manchester
enough. I’ve probably had more Cloudwater on cask here than anywhere. Then
there are the likes of Squawk or Torrside and the best kept Sonoma, all in a
pub that has always been lovely to sit in. My favourite place in town now.
Beer Nouveau Brewery Tap (Manchester)
I believe I mention them each year but Beer Nouveau
still have the best tap space in Manchester. It still retains that feeling of
being in a pub and a strong connection to the brewery and the beers, something
that other Manchester taps can lose. There is also a friendly welcome every
time, something that other Manchester taps also lose. In addition this year
there were also the brewery showcases on the spare bar in the brewery,
including the afore-mentioned Wilderness, an enjoyable afternoon with Elusive
Brewing ,amongst others.
Events
Peakender
It is strange that the
opinions and questions from others can tar your own memories. I had to think whether this
rearranged, muddy and difficult to navigate festival was enjoyable, due to the scepticism from others that mostly refer to the uncontrollable weather. The truth
is that it was my favourite year yet and I had a wonderful time. Buy some wellies
guys.
Friends & Family & Beer Festival
I held back on writing about
the moment that somebody said "Connor is in the back of a police van"
during this festival's inaugural year because I feel that has become the focus. In fact, at the moment somebody announced this to the group, there was a brief
disbelieving giggle before we decided what beer to have next. It had no bearing on our evening.
So I don't want to give this
particular event praise for, as it were, snatching
victory from the jaws of defeat as that had no bearing on the session that
I attended. Instead, I experienced an evening prior to all the brouhaha which had been
well crafted, thought-out and executed. This wasn’t a good festival because it
managed to go ahead; it was a brilliant festival regardless of the drama.
Torrside Brewery Tap Weekends / Smokefest
Yeah... I want to play it
cool with Torrside but let us look at the facts. I've relaxed on the FOMO a lot
in recent years, other than with every single Torrside release. I don't have a
beer "stash” that I am ageing as such; more a large pile of Torrside beers
I have yet to get around to drinking.
That has been apparent since
they began, so I don't feel the need to place them in breweries of the year.
But in a move that doesn't help me look any less like a screaming 60s Beatles
fan, I didn't miss a single one of Torrside's monthly tap weekends in 2019.
Whether hot, cold, windy, wet or being spat on from a local marina man, it is a
space I can spend hours in perched on a picnic bench with dog at my feet.
As for Smokefest – that was all said here.
The Independent Salford Beer Festival
I once wrote of the beer
list at Salford “Good beer regardless of forum
reputations, membership political party awards or review site hubris. If it is
brewed well and tastes good then it makes the list.” That remains the
mantra of sorts. When it comes to a diverse range of outstandingly well made
beer, I can’t think of a festival beer list that runs it close. The people are alright too.
Beer Media
Pellicle
I really do love beer blogs
and use an app to subscribe to every single one I'm aware of in this country,
whether they are a frequent writer or not. It has died off slightly in recent
years as some of my favourite bloggers have taken up other media,
retired or moved on to more professional work. The latter is presented brilliantly
in Pellicle.
Being the cynic that I have
never denied being, I did wonder whether I could find too much enjoyment in
less-personal-more-professional written work in this way but Pellicle has
married the two perfectly. Much of my favourite written beer media from the
last year came from here.
(As an aside - beer bloggers
do not be discouraged - you are just as important.)
Podcasts (Variety)
2019 was definitely the year
that I really bought into podcasts, subscribing to more than ever over several
different subjects but listening to as many beer podcasts as I can. Out of the
many, those that I listen to the majority
(if not all) episodes from are Beers Without Frontiers, Rhythm & Brews (currently on a small hiatus) Men Beerhaving Badly and, towards the end
of the year, Sheffield Hopcast. I try and subscribe to any I hear of now and
even toyed with the idea of starting one last year but timings just weren’t
right. Maybe in 2020…
My favourite still remains
the Hopinions podcast though. Again there is a certain rawness and personality
to it, whilst presenting interesting talks and interviews, that more
professional and paid podcasts are not currently providing and could never do
as subjectively anyway.
That was 2019 then. You've made it through the list. Adjust to it because I think this will be my preferred format of Golden Pints for quite some years. Finally,
I can move on to writing about current events. There are no big predictions,
goals or wishes for the future because I’ll be happy if it provides as many
highs in this industry as the previous year. Thank you all for reading and a
Happy New Year. Again.
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