Beers of the year - Nelly

Better late than never, here's my verdict for beers of the year 2013. As most of my drinking gets done at home, I'll do a top 3 for bottled beer and a "special category" for best beer from out and about.

Bottled Beer:

3rd - Thornbridge Jaipur
As Chris rightly said, this is the beer that started it for us. It has a superb hop aroma that I find is still rarely surpassed but best of all, it's quite obtainable, being sold in Waitrose. Jaipur will be responsible for introducing many, many people to craft beer and for that, I'll always doff my cap to it.

2nd - Marble Lagonda IPA
I'm very partial to a big, hoppy IPA and Lagonda is one of the best. It's good enough to come straight out of the fridge and still retain a beautiful complex taste and aroma. A little darker than Jaipur, it has a more rounded, interesting taste and a big, citrusy bouquet.

1st - Fyne Ales Jarl
I'll be quite honest - I only bought this because it was voted best golden ale at the Champion Beer of Britain awards. I'm glad I did jump on that particular bandwagon though, because it was superb. Jarl is not a strong beer, nor does it assault your senses with a big American hop profile. What it does do, is set the standard for what a great golden summer ale should be. Pale, grapefuity and light, it almost bounces down your neck with carefree abandon. Hell, it would probably get your wallet out for the next round if it could. Really marvellous stuff and my bottled beer of the year.

Out and about:

Magic Rock High Wire
2013 was the year I discovered craft beer and it was also the year Magic Rock nearly drove me mad. Very early on in my Beer Adventure, I read great things about this fledgling brewery from Huddersfield. It was unanimous - everyone agreed that MR make liquid gold and High Wire was the best of them all.

Only, you can't have any because nowhere sells it. I trawled the beer shops of Manchester and Cheshire looking for a bottle and there were none. Their own website had no stock and even the online beer suppliers seemed to have run out. Yet their website suggested vast quantities of the stuff being made. I came to the conclusion that they just don't like to see it leaving Yorkshire. Either that, or they operate the Eric Cartman "You Can't Have Any" sales strategy.

I think the real answer is that there's so much demand for their produce on draft that they just don't have the capacity to do much bottling. It was months before I finally managed to track down some MR on keg at the Young Pretender in Congleton. It was Cannonball, their 7.4% IPA. I won't go on about it, suffice to say it was insanely good.

I had to wait until IMBC in October to get myself outside some High Wire and boy, was it worth the wait. I love American pale ales and this is the best of the bunch by a big margin. I suspect a better APA can only be found by actually getting on a plane and heading West.

Worst Beer of the Year

I have to pick two beers here, for different reasons. First up is Tetleys Original, which was just amazingly flat and malty, but then I wasn't exactly expecting great things. The biggest disappointment for me was Thwaites Old Dan, which I thought was going to be so much better. I found it to be heavy and quite hard work. It also seemed to leave a sticky residue on the lips after each mouthful, like there was quite a bit of sugar left behind.

Lesson of the year

Drink 'em young. I bought a fresh bottle of St. Austell Big Job in the Summer and it was great - fresh and hoppy. A bottle from the same batch several months later was quite a disappointment though, with virtually no hop aroma left.


So what will 2014 bring? It'll certainly bring more homebrewing, that's for sure.
My esteemed colleague Chris and I have got a few lads' weekends planned as well, so there may even be some joint blogging. Should be fun.