– Beers of the Year 2015
Does anybody remember 2015? The beer drinkers below do! Here’s some highlights from our End of the Year 2015 survey…
RICHARD BROWNHILL
Little Leeds Beer House
FAVOURITE BEERS OF 2015
Buxton/Omnipollo Ice Cream Pale
Tilquin/Rulles ‘Rullquin Stout’
Wild Beer Co Redwood 2015
Quantum Stock Ale
Moor So’Hop (cans
FAVOURITE BREWERY OF 2015
Gueuzerie Tilquin
BEST BEER EXPERIENCE OF 2015?
Five amazing days in Copenhagen – nowhere near long enough. Also another amazing year of festivals – Leeds International and IMBC topping the bill as usual!
—
JAMES MOFFAT
Port Street Beer House / IMBC
FAVOURITE BEERS OF 2015
Logsdon Peche N Brett
Boon / Mikkeller Oude Geuze
Buxton Red Raspberry Rye
Lervig / Way 3 Bean Stout
Track Sonoma
FAVOURITE BREWERY OF 2015
I can’t choose…Far too many to choose from this year.
BEST BEER EXPERIENCE OF 2015
Working on IMBC was great. Brewing Dark Mass with Quantum.
—
DAVE HARRISON-WARD
Macclesfield Brewing Company
FAVOURITE BEERS OF 2015
Yellow Belly Sundae – Buxton/Omnipollo
Flat White – Alphabet Brewing Company
Yeastus Christus – To Øl
Airforce Gator – Quantum
Ahtanum Sour – Chorlton Brewing Company
FAVOURITE BREWERY OF 2015
Buxton
BEST BEER EXPERIENCE OF 2015
Opening a brewery (Macclesfield Brewing Company)! After that IMBC 2015 of course!
—
ARLO
Port Street Beer House
FAVOURITE BEERS OF 2015
Logsdon Peche N’ Brett
Quantum Air Force Gator
Burning Sky Cuveé
Siren/Mikkeller BA Daydream
Track Sonoma
FAVOURITE BREWERY OF 2015
Siren established / Track new
BEST BEER EXPERIENCE OF 2015
When the American Pallet came to Port Street with Westbrook and Jacks Abbey stuff!
—
CARL MCBRIDE
FAVOURITE BEERS OF 2015
Other Half – All Green Everything
Deschutes – Freshly Squeezed IPA
Omnipollo – Noa Pecan Mud Cake
Toccalomato – Zona Cesarini
Epic – Hop Zombie
FAVOURITE BREWERY OF 2015
Omnipollo
—
LEONA NORBURY
Port Street Beer House
FAVOURITE BEERS OF 2015
Logsdon ‘Pech ‘n’ Brett’
Alesmith ‘Vietnamese Speedway Stout’
Siren BA ‘Nacken’
8 Wired ‘Feijoa Sour 2013
Lervig & Way Beers ‘3 Bean Stout’
FAVOURITE BREWERY OF 2015
Pohjala (Estonia)
BEST BEER EXPERIENCE OF 2015
Borefts Bier Festival 2015 – The Netherlands
—
MYSTERY DRINKER
FAVOURITE BEERS OF 2015
Mikkeller/BrewDog Pale Ale Swindle
Beavertown Bloody ‘Ell
Cloudwater IPA
Okologisk Herslev Bryghus IPA
Jakehead IPA
FAVOURITE BREWERY OF 2015
Cloudwater
BEST BEER EXPERIENCE OF 2015
IMBC
—
LIAM HOWARD
Port Street Beer House Abandonee
FAVOURITE BEERS OF 2015
Logsdon – Peche ‘n Brett
The Bruery – Tart of Darkness
Lervig & Way – 3 Bean Stout
Buxton & Arizona Wilderness – Deep Rainbow Valley
Brew By Numbers – 11/03 Session IPA Mosaic
FAVOURITE BREWERY OF 2015
Track
BEST BEER EXPERIENCE OF 2015
Brewing at Quantum
—
MYSTERY GLUTEN INTOLERANT DRINKER
FAVOURITE BEERS OF 2015
Green’s Gutsy Dark Ale
Green’s Discovery
Mikkeller American Dream Gluten Free
To Øl Reparationsbajer Gluten Free
Brunehaut Bio Ambrée
FAVOURITE BREWERY OF 2015
Green’s
BEST BEER EXPERIENCE OF 2015?
Brunehaut Bio Ambrée
—
SCOTT KENNETH JACKSON
The Beagle
FAVOURITE BEERS OF 2015
Lervig / Way’s 3 Bean Stout (actual favourite)
Brouwerij Alvinne’s Cuvée de Mortagne Pedro Ximenez
Buxton’s Two Ton IPA
Burning Sky’s Cuvée 2015
Hawkshead / Crooked Stave’s Key Lime Tau (UK Version)
FAVOURITE BREWERY OF 2015
Buxton (honourable mention: Track)
BEST BEER EXPERIENCE OF 2015
Discussing Game of Thrones and sharing that bottle of Pedro Ximenez barrel-aged Cuvée de Mortagne with the best people in the world following my last ever shift at Port Street.
—
MYSTERY DRINKER
FAVOURITE BEERS OF 2015
Beavertown Bloody ‘Ell
Omnipollo Bianca Mango Lassie Gose
Mikkeller / Lindemann Spontanbasil
The Kernel Table Beer
Pressure Drop Pale Fire
FAVOURITE BREWERY OF 2015
Beavertown Brewery
BEST BEER EXPERIENCE OF 2015
What’s Brewing, Stavanger, Norway
—
ANDREW BAUCKHAM
Port Street Beer House
FAVOURITE BEERS OF 2015
Jack’s Abbey – Hoponious Union
Lervig/Way – Three Bean Stout
Wild Beer Co – The Blend 2015
Logsdon – Peche ‘n Brett
Marble – 125 Imperial Russian Stout, Burgundy
FAVOURITE BREWERY OF 2015
The Bruery
BEST BEER EXPERIENCE OF 2015
Supervising at IMBC
—
MYSTERY DRINKER
FAVOURITE BEERS OF 2015
To Øl Black Malts & Body Salts
Evil Twin Citra Sunshine Slacker
Dieu Du Ciel Disco Soleil
Cloudwater IPA
Rule of Thirds IPA
FAVOURITE BREWERY OF 2015
To Øl
BEST BEER EXPERIENCE OF 2015
Weekend trip to Copenhagen
—
MYSTERY DRINKER
FAVOURITE BEERS OF 2015
Yellow Belly (Buxton / Omnipollo)
Nebuchadnezzar (Omnipollo)
Two Ton (Buxton)
Fuck Art Let’s Dance (To Øl)
Molotov Cocktail (Evil Twin)
FAVOURITE BREWERY OF 2015
Buxton Brewery
BEST BEER EXPERIENCE OF 2015
Indy Man Beer Convention
—
MYSTERY DRINKER
FAVOURITE BEERS OF 2015
Black Jack Dragon’s Tears
Weird Beard – Double Pearl (MacCallan barrel)
Wild Beer – BrettBrett
Cloudwater – Autumn NZ Hopfenweiss
Wild Beer – Redwood
FAVOURITE BREWERY OF 2015
Wild Beer
BEST BEER EXPERIENCE OF 2015
Any trip to Cloudwater Tap
– Christmas Hampers
Available now at the bar
You’re surrounded by loved ones & some other people you haven’t seen for a year. There’s a tree in the house. None of you have been sober for weeks. You’re all wearing torn paper hats & telling awful jokes. Later you’ll eat the worst cake you’ve ever eaten & you’ll have to wash it down with a beer that for some reason has loads of cloves in it. This doesn’t have to be the case. You could pick up a hamper from Port Street Beer House & actually enjoy something on the 25th of December.
THE PORT STREET CHRISTMAS SELECTION BOX £32.50
1. Leipzig Bayerischer Bahnhof – Gose
Because whoever cooks dinner is going to under season it!
2. Siren/Cigar City – Caribbean Chocolate Cake
Why would you want to eat a fruit cake in the first place? Let alone one with marzipan? Have a Caribbean Chocolate Cake as dessert instead.
3. Buxton – Red Raspberry Rye
You’ve never made jam before. That’s why you made a mess of it! Why do you think people want your awful home made jam anyway? Give them a Red Raspberry Rye instead. It’s far better than anything you’re going to make.
4. Evil Twin – Freudian Slip
You’ll probably be needing something a little more boozy later on to help you through that 4 hour game of Monopoly.
5. Northern Monk/Nomada – Frate Nero
I always find dark beer goes great with beef. You’re having turkey? Why would you have turkey? It’s just a bigger, uglier, horribly dry chicken!
6. Firestone Walker – Union Jack
Give the gift of hops this Christmas. To yourself. Go on. You earned it. You’re definitely more deserving than those ungrateful friends & family members who are all asking if you kept the receipts.
CANS £25.00
Cans are perfect stocking fillers. They’re also perfect for the long train journey back to the middle of nowhere that you grew up. You can even spread the Christmas cheer by sharing them with your fellow travellers. Or just keep the cans to yourself to make putting up with being crammed into a busy train, surrounded by people shouting at each other on phones, eating noisily & listening to music through headphones at a volume that must be causing them some serious ear trouble just that little bit more bearable.
No I don’t want a mince pie from you, thanks.
Oh, you’re just going to leave your bags on the seat while I stand for 2 hours?
It’s great that you find my shoulder so comfortable but could you please sleep somewhere else? Somewhere far, far away from here.
1. Vocation – Heart & Soul
2. Roosters – Yankee
3. Evil Twin – Molotov Lite
4. Firestone Walker – Easy Jack
5. Sierra Nevada – Nooner
6. Northern Monk – Northern Star
USA £35.20
Oh America, you gave us so many terrible things. You’re responsible for Black Friday, the Kardashians & Comic Sans. It’s a good job you produce some amazing beer, otherwise I could never forgive you. The one thing I will never forgive you for however, is saying “I could care less”. Why do you keep saying you could care less when you have no interest in something? What you’re actually saying when you say you could care less is that you do care. You have to care a little bit to be able to care less. I could care less about these beers.
1. Stillwater – As Follows
2. Two Roads – Workers Comp Saison
3. Against The Grain – MacFannybaw
4. Founders – Centennial IPA
5. North Coast – Old Rasputin
6. Sierra Nevada – Hop Hunter IPA
UK £31.80
& what were we doing in the UK while America was coming up with Comic Sans? Not a lot. We were all too busy playing cricket to notice one of us had come up with the pay toilet. Yes, we’re to blame for there being toilets in train stations that earn more money than most people. Bravo UK. Well done. We’re also responsible for you having to pretend you care about one another at Christmas by exchanging bits of card with people you’ve only spoken to in the last year to complain about their cat doing its business on your lawn.
1. Northern Monk – New World IPA
2. Siren – BA Forgotten Journey
3. Magic Rock – Salty Kiss
4. Partizan – Porter
5. Buxton – Ace Edge
6. Mad Hatter – Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte
GLUTEN FREE £28.00
There are some people who can’t drink beer. Seriously. I hope you folks find some comfort in the fact that there’s some people out there making some amazing beer that you can drink!
1. Mikkeller – Peter, Pale & Mary
2. Mikkeller – I Wish IPA
3. First Chop – DOC
4. First Chop – HOP
5. Green’s – Premium Pils
6. Green’s – Dark Ale
The only Christmas spirit you need is whisky.
Thank you.
Merry Tuesday 24th November!
PS. As a special gift to you all this Christmas we’ll be throwing in an extra bottle to every hamper. I suggest you drink these yourself rather than giving them to the people you bought the hamper for. You already bought them six beers. They should be grateful enough for that. I’d be pretty happy if someone bought me six beers. Well, maybe not happy, but you know, drunk?
Words by James Moffat
– IMBC 15 Review by Cameron Steward
It’s safe to say that the Independent Manchester Beer Convention (now in its fourth year) has outgrown it’s humble, hush-hush beginnings, if it ever were that…The hallowed Saturday evening session sold out in something like 6 seconds, or hours, whatever. It’s now become the UK beer festival to go to for many reasons: the fantastic array of the best of the best British breweries (and a handful of European and US); stunning street food and snacks (good to see the cheese boards return); the gorgeous grade II listed Victoria Swimming Baths. Go on, pick one? Oh you need more…
Well, how about the one-off collaboration brews that the Indy Man team participated in with a handful of British beer barons, concocted especially for the event? I opt for IMBC’s pairing with Weird Beard and Norway’s Lervig which yielded The Frog is Fired (5%). It’s a delightfully sharp and florally refreshing start to the proceedings – though not as spectacular as last years Hacienda. I gallivant through the elegant rooms of the baths with childish glee, attempting to locate my favourites, finding Beavertown (St. Clement Sour – 4.5%), Cloudwater (BA Sour Cherries – 6.5%) and Brew By Numbers (16|04 Red Ale – 6.5%) along the way. BBNo. inch it with their Red Ale with Chocolate and Coffee tasting as velvety soft and delicious as I’d hoped.
The live online beer list doesn’t seem to be fully functioning, which is a shame. There was pleasure to be had in scouting the rooms for ones next tipple but I definitely would take the tried-and-tested paper list any day. The bright and airy Pineapple room is hosted by Manchester newbies Cloudwater and they’ve brewed up a storm for the weekend. Their Sour White and Yellow Peach (5.8%) aged in Sherry barrels shows a depth and experience which belies their youth, having only served their first beer in March of this very year. They also provided this years stunning glassware, so three cheers for those beauties!
Time for another collaboration but this time in snack form and Worksop-based Karkli have teamed with those Weird Beard dudes (get around a bit don’t they?) for a beer meets Lemon and Ginger twist on their traditional Indian snack. It’s milder than their usual produce and teams really well with Space Phantom (3.7%); Beavertown‘s Berliner Weisse, hopped to the end of the universe and back with Galaxy.
My following beers take me back to a more simple time with Burning Sky’s Flanders Red (6%) and Buxton’s Old World Saison (5.8%). Before I’m fully submerged in the past and donning robes, sandals and yielding a pitchfork (yes, a farming monk) I take a trip to the dark side with Left Handed Giant & Beavertown’s Sour Belgian Porter (6.8%), which tastes something along the lines of a boozy Black Forest Gateau stuffed with Haribo Tangfastics – damn, I love this festival!
It’s at this point where food is needed and to bring me back into a very British reality I select the Mince and Onion Pie by Great North Pie and a traditional Fish and Chips by Fish&. The pie is succulent and rich, the battered cod is light and crispy, and I am one satisfied gentleman.
My next wander takes me to Room 1 where I unearth Celt brewery’s Bleddyn AP Brett (5.9%), which tastes like Orval’s little brethren. It’s pretty decent even in Orval’s shadow but then Atom Brewing get all unstable and unleash bottles of their porter Dark Alchemy (4.9%), delivering free splashes to your nearest receptacle. I collide mine with a drop of Bleddyn Brett and fuse a superheavy, rich and funky delight. I’m like some sort-a genius…
I sampled plenty of other great beers including Beavertown’s BA Moosefang (9%), which was initially too cold and would have benefitted from being served on cask, as when it warmed up the magic truly began. But my favourite of the proceedings was recommended to me by a representative from the NZ Collective bar whose tantalising tip-off of Cromarty Brewing‘s Udder Madness (1.6%) was too intriguing to resist. A vanilla milk sour which tasted like a cream soda. Or more like a dream soda! I could have drunk it all night but instead I went home. Because I was drunk.
Of course the party didn’t end there, I took full advantage of the ingenious take away canning service provided by WeCan. This proved a great way to either take home your favourite find from the event or grab something that you didn’t get round to nursing. I boosted my beer count with Elgood‘s lip-smacking Lambic, Coolship Fruit (5%), Tuatara‘s juicy IPA, Hapi Nui (7%) and Magic Rock‘s succulent hop-bomb, High Wire Grapefruit (5.5%).
And just like that it’s all over and we have to wait another year for what feels like the most significant annual event in my calendar. We’re talking better than Easter and Christmas rolled into one. Yep. See you in 2016 then…
—
Check out Cameron Steward’s excellent blog, All You Need Is Beer. Thanks for the write up, Cameron!
– Moor Tap Takeover / review by Cameron Steward
It hasn’t always been smooth sailing for Moor. Established in 1996, success came quickly for them and why wouldn’t it? Old Freddy Walker (7.3%), Revival (3.8%) and Hoppiness (6.5%) all made a big impression wining a multitude of awards at festivals and flying the flag from the highest tor of the Somerset-Levels area. However they became a victim of their own success, outsourcing production resulting in a dip of quality and by the mid-00s they needed shaking up to return to their celebrated past. Enter ex-US Army officer Justin Hawke who drilled the brewery hard, restoring it beyond former glories and eventually expanding to a 20-barrel brew length and bottling line, putting Moor front and centre of a revolution.
Tonight they’ve infiltrated Port Street Beer House with a regimented line up of 4 keg and 7 cask, all looking formal and all very inviting. Justin Rivett from the brewery gives a succinct introduction, reinforcing Moor’s stance on unfined and naturally hazy brews, a process in which they take great pride. He’s also delighted to have brought the 2015 incarnation of Fusion; their old ale aged in Somerset Cider Brandy barrels. They had me at “aged” but sitting at 8%, I’ll be saving that for the end of the night.
And so I begin with keg offerings Ready Made 2 (5%) and their flagship IPA, Hoppiness (6.5%). The former glows in the glass with a prickly sense of Autumn on the nose and a chorus of hops, singing in tune with the toffee stickiness. It’s insanely quaffable and gone in an instant. I actually preferred RM2 to Hoppiness, which presented an ocean spray of tropical hops and is still of course a class act but didn’t quite have the punch of the “fruity porridge” for me.
My next samples meander down a mellow path with Half & Half (4.1%), a traditional cask mild combined with their no nonsense Bitter, Raw. My mind is cast back to Partizan’s ‘Mild’ and the gorgeously nutty and rounded mouthfeel proves that Moor are entirely competent with contemporary beers as well as archaic styles. A zip of citrus and a veneer of dark chocolate confirm that I could have stayed with this one for more than just the third I ordered. Confidence (4.6%) continues down the road less brazen but satisfies in its earthy and rustic debonair.
It’s then a trip to the dark side with Sloe Walker (7.4%), which takes their “liquid Christmas pudding” Old Freddy Walker and combines in cask with foraged sloe berries. It’s dark, rich, roasted and silky smooth. The berries offer a sour acidity which threads through the old ale, with no hint to the alcohol – this was probably drink of the night.
Return of the Empire (5.7%) is a clean and zippy IPA which wears it’s distinct Britishness like a proud soldier coming back from war, as opposed to a particular Greene King swilling idiot. The modern British hop Jester is front and centre showcasing its tropical credentials, something not often associated with English hops. I enjoy this so much I can almost hear the haunting refrain from “Land of Hop and Glory” resonate through the building, bringing a tear to me eye.
Those tears however were vanquished with my next beer Fusion (8%), which blends their old ale with Somerset Cider Brandy. This mature beer is a complex delight when it reaches my lips: funky, punchy, roasty, oaky and smooth as a mountain goat with the sweet acidity of apples lingering long on the palate. Fusion illustrates Moor’s innovation and passion in one superbly melded beer.
With it getting on a bit and having talked at length about Game of Thrones with a couple of nurses I sneak in a couple of solid cask offerings in the form of Brit Hop (4.1%) and Revival (3.8%) before closing the proceedings with the sparky Ready Made 2 again.
Moor has long been on my radar and I was only familiar with a handful of what was on offer tonight. With ease they won me over with their patrol of first class artillery, seamlessly integrating modern and traditional, innovation and passion, evident in every sip. When can I have some Moor?
Words and photos by Cameron Steward. Author of hit blog All You Need Is Beer
Moor Beer Co – http://moorbeer.co.uk
