– Best of 2016
The results from our best beers of 2016 survey are IN! You guys filled in more forms than ever (well, than 2015 at least…I have a short memory) so below are your answers in full. 2016 was a great year for beer.
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JAMES MOFFAT
PSBH Manager
- Brewski – Passionfeber
- 6 Degrees North – Lindsaymans Framboise
- Omnipollo / Dugges – BA Anagram Blueberry Cheesecake
- Way – Red Wine Saison
- Firestone Walker – Rye Double DBA
- Cloudwater – DIPA v3
- Lervig/Way Beer – 3 Bean Stout
- Dugges – Tropic Sunrise
- Cloudwater – IPA Citra
- Buxton / Omnipollo – Yellow Belly
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- Pliny the Elder – Russian River
- Lords of Acid – Lindheim Ølkompani
- Booming Rollers – Modern Times
- Anagram – Dugges x Omnipollo
- Duet – The Alpine Beer Company
- Cloudwater – DIPA v10
- Beavertown – Lupuloid
- Beavertown – ‘Spresso
- Cloudwater / To Øl – Imperial Stout
- Magic Rock – Salty Kiss
- Alphabet – Nouvelle Saison Beetroot and Horseradish
- The Cloudwater DIPA series
- Galway Bay – Two Hundred Fathoms (2016)
- Thirst Class Ale – Kiss my Ace (Salford Beer Fest)
- Marble – Ibuki’s Beer
PAUL HALLOWS
- Cloudwater – DIPA v2
- Maui – Big Swell IPA
- Beavertown – Bloody ‘Ell (keg/can)
- Brewdog / North – Sour Bru
- Kernel – Pale Ale (can’t remember which one though)
- Omnipollo & Tupiniquim – Polimango
- Siren – Vanilla Weisse
- Northern Monk – Mango Lassi Heathen
- Brew by Numbers – 5503 DIPA
- Marble – Into The Void
- Brouwerij De Dolle Brouwers – Cosmos
- Siren / Cigar City – Eisbock BA Caribbean Chocolate Cake
- Logsdon – Peche ‘n Brett (again)
- Firestone Walker – Rye Double BDA Vintage 2016
- Cigar City – super fresh Jai Alai (air-freighted over for their TT at Magic Rock)
- Omnipollo – Noah
- Jester King – Le Petit Prince
- To Øl – Sur Simcoe
- Magic Rock – Human Cannonball (canned February version)
- Verhaeghe – Echte Kriek
- Buxton / Omnipollo – Vanilla Ice Cream Pale
- Vocation – Smash & Grab
- Hawkshead – Tiramisu Imperial Stout
- Magic Rock – Inhaler
- Track – Double Sonoma
- Cloudwater – Small Beer
- Marble – Portent of Usher
- Chorlton – Dark Matter
- Magic Rock – Bearded Lady Gran Marnier Choc Orange Stout
- Cloudwater – DIPA v6
- Cloudwater – IPA Citra (V1 with Vermont Yeast)
- Cloudwater – DIPA v3
- Cloudwater / Magic Rock / JW Lees – Three’s Company
- Hawkshead / Cigar City – Tiramisu Imperial Stout
- Magic Rock – Inhaler
- Northern Monk – Malt
- Burning Sky – Saison a la Provision
- Rodenbach – Alexander
- Cloudwater – Citra IPA
- Alvinne – Ich Bin Ein Berliner Framboos
- To Øl – Sur Citra
- Magic Rock / Beavertown / Siren – Rule of Thirds
- St-Feuillien – Belgian Coast IPA
- Sentinel – RRG
- Lost Industry – Pineapple Yogurt Sour
- Magic Rock – Bearded Lady Dessert edition
- Buxton / Omnipollo – Yellow Belly
- Cloudwater – DIPA v9
- Logsdon – Seizoen Bretta
- Magic Rock – Hypnotist
- Track – Sonoma
- Cloudwater – DIPA v8
- Oakham – Green Devil IPA
- 90/90 Black IPA
- Oakham – Citra
- White Rat
- Oakham Citra
- Bradfield Brewery Farmers Blonde
- Lowry
- Omnipollo – Noa Pecan Mud Cake
- Cloudwater – DIPA v7
- Brewdog – Elvis Juice
- Fourpure – Juicebox
- Magic Rock – Inhaler
- Beavertown – Bloody Notorious
- Cloudwater – DIPA
- Vocation – Life and Death
- Brewdog – Elvis Juice
- Beavertown – Lupuloid IPA
- Cloudwater / Magic Rock / JW Lees – Three’s Company
- Beavertown – Skull King
- Buxton/Omnipollo – Yellow Belly
- Siren – Proteus IPA Vol. 1
- Cloudwater – DIPA v8
- Northern Monk – Double Heathen
- Grapes BFM √225 Saison
- Firestone Walker – Parabajava
- Cloudwater – DIPA v8
- Dugges / Omnipollo – Barrel Aged Anagram
- Omnipollo – Noa Pecan Mudcake Stout
- Cloudwater / Magic Rock / JW Lees – Three’s Company
- Omnipollo / Buxton – Yelly Bellow
- Atom – Mars
- Siren / Cigar City – BA Caribbean Chocolate Cake
- Beavertown – Skull King
- Cloudwater – DIPA v3
- Track – Cotopaxi
- Cloudwater – DIPA v5
- Beavertown – Capt Hasta
- Cloudwater – Vermont ESB. I could drink this forever…
- Cloudwater – PX Imperial Stout
- Thornbridge – Love Among the Ruins
- Sarah Hughes – Dark Ruby Mild
- Buxton – Tripel. The beer I’ve drunk most this year.
- Omnipollo – Noa
- Omnipollo / Buxton – Ice Cream Pale
- Wild Beer Co – Modus Vivendi
- Magic Rock – The Upside Down
- Buxton – Trolltunga
- Lervig – 3 Bean Stout
- Wild Beer Co – Pogo
- Tring Brewery – Pale + Four
- Allgates Brewery – Blue Sky Tea
- Mikkeller – Sponton Lingonberry
- Omnipollo Noa
- Cigar City Hunahpu’s Imperial Stout
- Buxton Guatemalan Coffee Extra Porter
- Track Pekoe Blue Lady IPA
- Orval
FAVOURITE BREWERY OF 2016
– IMBC 16 review by Cameron Steward
The night before Independent Manchester Beer (and Stuff) Convention (better known to you and I as Indy Man Beer Con, or IMBC for maximum abbreviation) is always one of skittish anxiety and this year was no different. What would be my first beer? Should we get a table first or tokens? What happens if Cloudwater run out of DIPA V8?
My anxieties aren’t helped by turning up to the Saturday Day session at 11:30 on a hilariously tropical October morning only to join the snaking queue some 500 people deep. I’m convinced everyone will be ordering that DIPA first and my strategic master plan will be thrown into disarray.
Upon arrival the Cloudwater team assure me there’s enough V8 to last the whole weekend, allowing my nerves to cease their shredding. Now I am a man with the world at my feet and it’s high time I drank that world, so I start with IMBC virgins Jester King and their smoked malt, juniper-infused and sweet gale Saison, Gotlandstricka (6.6%). It’s as totally mad as that sounds and perhaps defines my whole approach to Indy Man. Y’see, I haven’t attended this festival every year since its inception (5 years) to taste beers I can sample any-bloody-where. I’ve come here to exercise my weird and wacky taste buds, to let my freak flag fly, and as I walk around the festival plenty of beers that fit that description catch my eye and beckon me in.
As always the bar staff are super-helpful, friendly and always up for a chat. Stockport’s Thirst Class have cleverly put a bee in my bonnet and enticed me to their stand with a funky little pun of a title. I exchange some They Might Be Giants witticisms with Brewer and Proprietor Richard Conway as he pours me a thick ‘n fruity third of Farmhouse In Your Soul (5.3%). Later I also regale an unsuspecting bartender that I’m ordering Jester King’s Le Petit Prince (2.9%), as just last week I read the Antoine de Saint-Exupery novella of the same name. She doesn’t even look like she’s humouring me. I’m definitely in my element here…
The food is always outstanding at Indy Man and the tacos from Al Pastor Paul pair stupidly well with the aforementioned table beer. The mole with avocado, chocolate chilli spiked sauce and cheese variety particularly blew my tiny mind!
Other beers of note include Brodie’s Mocha Milk Stout (9%), To Øl’s Roses Are Brett (6%), Wild Beer and Indy Man‘s BA strawberry sour Strawblender (5.5%) and of course Cloudwater’s best in the series so far DIPA V8 (9%). Even better than all of those however may have been when Buxton Brewery decided to out-raspberry themselves with the limited edition Double Raspberry Rye (5.2%) with a soft serve topping. Picture it if you will; the Mediterranean sun causing your delicious raspberry ice cream to melt before your very eyes, your only chance of cooling down, nay, survival, is to whip off your trunks and go skinny-dipping in sweet raspberry coulis. Yes, it was that good…
This year also marked the first time I got to experience a talk – I’m usually too slow or drunk, or both. My fellow blogging chum Matthew Curtis of Total Ales was doing a live tasting of Fourpure and Cloudwater’s Optare (a 6.6% Black Belgian IPA) and of course whilst wanting to see and support Matt, I also really wanted to participate in something as completely nerdy as live beer blogging! The crowd took a while to warm up to both the concept and the beer but I assisted in contributing a few adjectives including “a palate like Victorian wallpaper”, which a gentleman took to so kindly he found me after the talk and shook my hand, still chucking… Fourpure’s Rob Davies even liked my Mo Farah analogy so much he rewarded me with a delicious slice of Shape Shifter IPA (6.4%). Top lad!
And therein lies the key to Indy Man’s continued success; that friendly, free-spirited, open armed, big fun environment, which keeps me (and many, many others) coming back year after year. So, I’ll see you all in 2017 then.
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Words and photographs by Cameron Steward of All You Need Is Beer.
– Siren Tap Takeover review by Cameron Steward
It’s nearing the end of the Siren Craft Brew Tap Takeover when I find myself shoulder to shoulder with head brewer Markus Wagner. I’ve made a modest impact on the extensive selection he’s brought along (7 cask and 7 keg) and at this moment I’m gently nursing a Caribbean Chocolate Cake (8.5%), which tonight has been exclusively ‘nitro-fied’, intensifying the lactose creaminess and ascending an already wonderful beer to some astral plane, upon which only the most heavenly items known to mankind can be found. In other words, I was bloody enjoying it!
My journey to this part of the night was littered with other glories; highlights including Vanilla Weisse (a 4% vanilla-infused Beliner Weisse), which was sharp and fully rounded, with the vanilla ironing out those acerbic edges. There was also the Caribbean Chocolate Orange Cake (8.5%), which took the original Triple C and made it taste like Liquid Terry’s Chocolate Orange. Needless to say it was decadent beyond belief!
It was equally excellent to revisit Undercurrent (4.5%) an Oatmeal Pale and finally try Liquid Mistress (5.5%), a zingy Red Ale, both on cask. However a couple of pales didn’t quite reach the heady heights of their more established brethren, with Proteus (4%) lacking the hoppy punch it promised and Vermont Tea Party (a 3.6% pale with Earl Grey and lemon zest), although kinda resembling the magnificence of their other Earl Grey-infused wonder Love of Work, just wasn’t as spectacular. New kid on the block Peligrosos (5.6%) on the other hand was a dangerously juicy IPA, bursting with peach and magic.
So we’ve come full circle and back to the exchange between myself and Mr. Wagner, where I manage to prod him about hops and the recent influx of Double and Triple IPAs. He confesses he’s no real interest in these, opting for weirder, darker delights and bizarre concoctions that hibernate in barrels before reaching the high standard he brings to the brewery – he cut his teeth as part of the barrel ageing and sour beer-ing programme at Firestone Walker don’t y’know?! And just as he reveals this information I receive a thimble of their collaboration with Mikkeller and Hill Farmstead, Whiskey Sour IPA (10.2%). A beer that effortlessly (although I’m sure loads of effort went into) showcases the best example of barrel ageing I’d ever laid my lips on. Offering a wealth of sharp citrus, delicately hushed by the sweet bourbon, both of which sing in perfect harmony. There’s also a deep, rich oakiness and soft vanilla sweetness that compliment every languorous sip.
I’ve been called to the deep. And I don’t wanna go back.
Words and photographs by Cameron Steward. Check out Cameron’s excellent All You Need Is Beer blog
– PSBH is 5 (and a bit)
Words by James Moffat / PSBH Manager
Remember the days before Port Street? When you’d finish work on a Friday & head straight home & just sit there staring at the wall waiting for someone to invent Netflix? Before you were invited to 9 different events every Saturday by people you haven’t spoken to in person since high school? I still remember my first trip here, long before I ever stepped foot behind the bar, when I came in on my birthday to sample some new beers! Hard to believe that was five years ago.
Anyway.
PORT STREET IS FIVE YEARS OLD!
We got pretty busy in the run up to our birthday travelling around & brewing some beers for you to enjoy at our birthday celebration.
First up was Arbor where we collaborated with them to produce PSBH Bomb. Based on their brilliant Bomb series but this one’s hopped with Pacific gem, Summit, Bravo, mt Hood. We forgot to take any photos of this brew day or we all had broken phones & no one carries a camera these days!
Shortly after we popped down to see Cloudwater & try some of the stuff they had in tank & brain storm some ideas which became a Lapsang Lichtenhainer. Combining our love of smoked & sour beers.
Next up was a double brew day with some of us heading over to Leeds to see Northern Monk to brew an imperial mild, Life On Mild.
Meanwhile, Edward headed down to Squawk on his own to collaborate with Runaway, Squawk & Track on 5 Alive, a pale ale with a big citrus twist!
Lastly. After a long walk up what I’m told is the longest continuous gradient in Europe! We got to see Vocation & brew a massively hopped American pale ale, Lost & Found!
Hope you enjoy them all!
Birthday pump clips by David Bailey