My Beers of 2014

In 2014 I’ve drunk beer in 17 different countries across five continents, visiting 136 breweries along the way. If I hadn’t drunk so much over the last 12 months then it would’ve been an unforgettable year… Bypassing the usual Golden Pints (because I tried and it was too hard), here are my beers of the year, in no particular order.

Kout na Šumavě 12° at the brewery in Czech Republic

We arrived at midday and were given litre steins of Kout’s 12° pale lager. It was astonishingly good. During a tour the brewery, which is basically a derelict farm, we drank the 14° and 18° dark beers from the tank, out of large jugs. All the Kout beers are incomparably good. For more on the brewery, you should read Evan Rail’s excellent kindle single.

Jing-A Flying Fist IPA at the brewpub in Beijing

This is the best beer I drank in China and one of the best IPAs I’ve tasted – super clean, super juicy, superbly balanced. Their Airpocalypse DIPA is equally awesome and the price goes up and down depending on the air quality that day – if it’s particularly smoggy outside then head to the pub as the air is cleaner and the beer is cheaper.

Camden Town Brewery IHL all over London

From my first glass of Indian Summer – from which IHL evolved – I’ve adored this beer. It’s the perfect mix of IPA’s hops and lager’s clean balance. IHL is ruinously bangable and just always good. Hells Lager also needs a mention because I’ve drunk more of this than anything else this year and it just keeps on getting better – it’s my go-to beer.

Avery White Rascal at the brewery in Boulder

This has long been a favourite beer and drinking a few glasses of it at the brewery in Boulder confirmed that – it has the best body and balance of any Witbier I’ve had and it’s so full of flavour. I also had a few glasses of Maharajah DIPA while at the brewery. I don’t remember the rest of that night.

Mountain Goat Summer Ale in many bars in Australia

This is the beer I drank most of while in Australia. It’s just about the juiciest banger (to use the beer term of the year) with the most delicious tropical fruit aroma and flavour. The brewery in Melbourne is a very cool place with a whole range of excellent beers.

Eschenbräu Dunkel at the brewery in Berlin

I always go to Eschenbräu when I’m in Berlin. There’s something special about the beers – a house quality that’s a little fruity with a hint of sulphur – that I adore. The Pils is always great but this year it was the Dunkel which grabbed me, a beer with just a hint of toastiness and caramel which perfectly worked with the dry, bitter hops.

Night Shift IPAs at the brewery in Boston

I spent far too much of 2014 walking around industrial estates looking for breweries. For Night Shift that walk was totally worth it to find some incredible beers – I ended up drinking a 4oz pour of everything on tap (which left me a little over-refreshed). All of the IPAs were next-level-good, as were the sours.

Dieu du Ciel Moralité IPA at the brewpub in Montreal

The Dieu du Ciel brewpub in Montreal is one of the best places I drank this year. Péché Mortel, their coffee-infused stout, is beyond superlatives when poured on a nitro tap, while Moralité IPA, originally brewed as a collab with John Kimmich at The Alchemist, was no-question the best IPA I tasted in 2014.

Blackman’s Brewery Festbier at the brewery in Torquay, Australia

The most impressive new brewery I went to this year was Blackman’s in Torquay, about an hour out of Melbourne. Renn Blackmann brewed at Camden Town for a while before moving back to Oz and opening his own place with his girlfriend Jess. All the beers are bang-on-brilliant but especially this Citra-hopped lager. Perfect with the Asian-inspired food in the brewpub.

Partizan Simcoe Pale Ale at home

This one passed the ultimate test of how much I like a beer: I bought a case of it. Those 24 bottles didn’t last long and I haven’t had it since but I still remember its subtle brilliance and sweetly juicy aroma. Pressure Drop’s Pale Fire became my replacement for this, a beer brewed 10-minutes from my flat and often in my glass.

Urban Chestnut Zwickl at the brewery in St Louis

I expected Urban Chestnut to be good but they were way beyond my already-high expectations. The Zwickl had some biscuity malt, a smooth body yet still refreshingly light, then a long, dry, hoppy finish. So good.

Eisenbahn Flying Bison IPA at the brewery in Blumenau, Brazil

The original Brazilian microbrewery makes this American-style IPA which you can only buy in the bottle from the brewery. I begged and pleaded for them to let me buy some bottles to take home but they wouldn’t do it. If I say it’s ‘Pliny good’ then you know what level it’s at.

Salm Märzen at the brewery in Vienna

I fell in love with all the beers in Salm in Vienna but the Märzen stood out for being lush with toasty malt, full-bodied and creamy with a deep bitterness. It’s glasses of beer like this that makes me repeatedly fall deeper in love with lager.

Bia hoi in Hanoi

Drinking this pale lager from plastic mugs, by the roadside in Hanoi, squatting on tiny plastic stools, as hundreds of bikes buzzed past, is one of my favourite experiences from this year. We spent three days drinking it and I loved every cool glass I had.

The Alchemist Heady Topper from the brewery in Vermont

Yeah, so I got to drink this from the tank at the brewery in October. “It smells like juice!” I said, unable to control my spontaneous excitement. “I know!” replied John Kimmich, looking as excited about it as I felt. A beer worthy of all its hype.

Augustiner Helles in Berlin

Midnight in Berlin, 11 hours after running the city’s Marathon, and we’re drunk and full from drinking and eating too much. On the slow, painful walk home we pass a shop selling Augustiner Helles and drink it on the way. Great beer.

O’Hara’s Irish Stout in Dublin

So smooth, so rich, so full and just so bloody good. O’Hara’s Leann Folláin is also seriously delicious. I went to Dublin twice this year and I think it’s one of the most exciting craft beer markets in the world right now – the beer quality is exceptionally high and there’s a great variety of beers. Go to Dublin!

1516 Weisse at the brewpub in Vienna

A Cascade-hopped German-style wheat beer that’s fruity in all kinds of different ways. It was an unexpected surprise which made me go back for a few more glasses.

Budweiser from the tank in St Louis

The Budweiser brewhouse in St Louis is one of the most beautiful breweries I’ve ever seen. Drinking the beer from townhouse-sized tanks wasn’t as revelatory as other underground lager experiences but it was still a brilliant thing to have done and gave me a newfound appreciation of a beer which I already had a lot of respect for.

Beavertown Smog Rocket

I’ve been all over smoky flavours this year and Smog Rocket is a constantly good dark, smoked beer. The combination of that with the ribs in Duke’s is one of the best beer and food experiences this year. I’ve drunk a lot of Beavertown in 2014 and will drink a lot more in 2015.

Keserű Méz in Szimpla Kert, Budapest

Szimpla Kert is one of the coolest bars I’ve ever drunk in. I spent hours just walking around and enjoying it late at night before going back the next lunchtime to explore its many rooms and spaces during daylight. Keserű Méz is a hoppy and unfiltered strong lager from Fóti brewery – a good beer made even better by the surroundings.

Everything in Lowdown, Denver

We were in a cab back into the city after visiting a few brewpubs when we passed this place without knowing about it. We shouted “stop the cab!” in a wonderfully dramatic way and went in, ordered a taster of all the beers and loved them all.

De Prael Mary in De Prael Proeflokaal, Amsterdam

Think a barley wine meets a Belgian strong ale with lots of hops served in a cool brewpub near Amsterdam’s red light district. I like this place a lot.

And because I’ve done a lot of eating this year, here are the…
10 Best Things I Ate in 2014.

Ribs at Bogart’s in St Louis

Ribs have been ruined for me now because I don’t think I’ll ever eat better than those at Bogart’s. I’m not even going to attempt to describe how delicious they were. Likewise for their housemade pickles. Best thing I ate this year.

Peated malt biscuits at Clove Club

I love the smoky, saline flavour of peat and using that malt made into little biscuits was a real food highlight of the year – savoury yet sweet and very light.

Mortadella sandwich in Mercado Municipal in Sao Paolo
A world-beating sandwich in the massive Mercado Municipal. I’ve never seen so much meat stuffed between two pieces of bread and it was spectacular.

Cha ca la vong in Hanoi

It’s fish fried in turmeric plus loads of dill, which sounds like it’d be weird but it’s an unbelievably good dish. All of that strong dill flavour is muted when it cooks, turning into a spinach-like soft mix of savoury greens.

Pork bao from Bao in Netil Market

If there’s a better street food dish in London then I haven’t eaten it. Whenever I’ve been in London on a Saturday I’ve walked the few minutes from my flat to Netil Market to eat this. Their fried chicken is also awesome.

Stir-fried morning glory in Hanoi

The simplicity of this is what made it so good: it was just greens fried with garlic but it was so tasty.

Schnitzel in Schneeweisse

I have no idea how they made the meat so tender and the crumb so crisp and light but this schnitzel blew my mind. The potato salad on the side would also probably have made this list on its own.

Sweetcorn pudding in Mercado Municipal in Sao Paolo

Somehow the combination of sweetcorn and condensed milk blended together, set and served with cinnamon was a perfect little pot of dessert. I need to remake this myself.

Egg coffee in Hanoi

It’s not food but it was definitely one of the best things I tasted in 2014. In fact, all the coffee I drank in Vietnam was unreal. The egg part came like a meringue on top with this rich, thick coffee beneath. It was so good we went back the next day for another.

Hazelnut gelato and custard tartsNot together, obviously, but these are two food-things which I'm obsessed with and I’ve eaten them around the world as a weird ever-present in my eating (do you know that in Vietnam you can get custard tarts in KFC?! They’re weird and cheesy). The custard tart at The Barn in Berlin was my favourite and 3BIS in Borough Market was the best for the gelato.

Beer and Food

My second book, Beer and Food, is out now! The title hints at what it’s about, but let me tell you a bit more…

My goal was to make a book about the topic of putting beer and food together, but I didn’t want it to just be lists of things which taste good. I wanted to go deeper, I wanted to understand how things interact, how the sensations of taste work, the science and composition of different ingredients (like how Simcoe, Citra and many Aussie and Kiwi hops are especially high in the oil myrcene, which is also found in thyme, bay and mango, meaning there’s natural flavour crossovers), as well as giving some great pairings that anyone can try.

I wanted to make it fun and approachable, not just some geek-fest of weird dishes and unobtainable beers – it’s realistic in what people eat and drink. Plus in the book there’s a section about what to eat and drink with a hangover, what beers to have with fast food, what goes best with breakfast or the foods to choose with mainstream brews. The idea is simply that is makes people think differently about how beer and food can be put together.

The book is in four parts. The first introduces the idea of beer and food together, it gives some beer history and goes through the brewing process. The second part starts with the beer style and finds food to go with it, as well as suggesting some general and good matches to go with. Part three begins with the food and then gets a beer to go with it. The final section includes around 50 recipes using beer as an ingredient.

For the recipes, there are some classics like carbonnade and then there’s a load which I’ve developed myself – simple, tasty dishes which benefit from beer being added to them (some of which came from the earlier days of this blog), like beer doughnuts, a beery eton mess, stout mashed potatoes, chicken cooked in Duvel inspired by coq a la biere (which I couldn’t resist calling ‘Coq a la Duvel Doo… still makes me laugh today), or this beauty for ribs cooked in dubbel:

It was a fun book to write. I spent the whole of last summer either eating, drinking, writing, cooking or trying to run as far as possible to have some healthy balance. I lost count of the number of meals I had with at least three glasses of beer and I don’t know how many times I put cling film over the top of a bottle to save it for the next day or to use it in a recipe idea.

I’m really pleased with the book and very proud of it. Hopefully it goes in different directions with beer and food than other books have before.

It’s available on Amazon in the UK and US. It’s also in bookstores all over the place (it’s already been spotted in Australia). There’s a 10-page preview online here. And don’t forget that my first book, Craft Beer World, is also still available (that’s still good and you should also own that one). There’s a Kindle version of that, too (Beer and Food might follow, but not for six months).

If you get a copy then I’d love to know what you think!

The illustrations for this book were done by Nicholas Frith. I love his work!

10 Beer Chocolate Truffle Recipes

Easter means chocolate. It also means a long weekend of beering (that’s what it means for me, anyway). It’s also a fine time to bring beer and chocolate together and make truffles. The good thing for this recipe is that once you know the basic way of making the truffles you can pimp them with whatever beer and chocolate you want.

The basic Beer Chocolate Truffle recipe

Makes 10-20 truffles

100ml double cream

100ml beer

25g butter

Pinch of salt

200g dark chocolate (or 400g if it’s white or milk)

Something to roll the truffles in

Gently warm the cream, beer, butter and salt in a pan but don’t let it boil. Remove from the heat and mix in the chocolate, stirring until it melts. Put in a bowl and place in the fridge to allow the mixture to cool and set. When ready to go, use a melon-baller or two spoons to create the round truffle shapes and then roll in cocoa powder, ground roasted barley (this works really well if you can get some), crushed toasted nuts or desiccated coconut. Then eat.

If you want to make these with milk or white chocolate then the recipe changes slightly and you need more chocolate to liquid. So a mix of 100ml cream and 100ml beer requires about 400g of chocolate.

Here are 10 of my favourite combinations

Cherry beer and dark chocolate – you can also add dried sour cherries to it

Simply imperial stout and dark chocolate which combines nicely to make the mix extra rich

Get spicy with dark or milk chocolate, dried chilli flakes and cardamom, plus coffee stout

Go Belgian with milk chocolate and quadrupel, perhaps also adding some cinnamon or quad-soaked raisins

Weizenbock with white chocolate and rolled in toasted hazelnuts

Double IPA and white chocolate, plus a teaspoon of honey, then rolled in coconut is really good

An unexpectedly delicious combo is milk chocolate and Rauchbier, giving the equivalent of chocolate covered bacon. A pinch of smoked salt helps boost it all

Black IPA, dark chocolate and orange zest is superb

Recreate PB&J with dark chocolate, a tablespoon of crunchy peanut butter and some raspberry beer. Roll this one in crushed salted pretzels

Bourbon barrel-aged stout with milk or dark chocolate and rolled in coconut is like an adult version of a Bounty bar

This recipe (and the photo at the top) is from my new book, Beer and Food. It’s out on 15 May and you can pre-order it online - below are 10 sample pages. I’m really excited for this book to be released – it’s about the best of beer and food together, there’s some science to how and why beer works well, there’s ideas for pairings, plus a few recipes using beer in them.

The BrewBurger

The bastards beat me to it.

I had this plan, you see, to try and make the most beery burger the world had ever seen. A cheeky little tie-in to plug my new book – Beer and Food, coming soon! Pre-order it now! – that would challenge me to use as much beer as possible and still get a delicious burger.

And then BrewDog and Honest Burger did it with the BrewBurger. Something so boozy you need an ID to order it.

Despite my DIPA-level of bitterness, I still wanted to eat it. I had to eat it, in fact. I couldn’t not eat it. I mean, look at it. It’s a magnificent masterpiece of meat. And I say this as someone who spends most of my internet browsing (the non-incognito hours anyway) looking at photos of burgers.

The burger stacks 5am Saint candied bacon, Punk IPA onions and a Paradox BBQ sauce along with comte cheese and Honest’s brilliant beef patty. And it’s excellent. The use of beer is subtle, adding depth of flavour instead of just being a gimmick. The meat is always good at Honest and the bun is so soft and sweet. It comes with a Bourbon Baby, BrewDog’s barrel-aged scotch ale which tastes a bit like JD and coke, in a good way – sweet vanilla, molasses, wood, spice.

Having had the BrewBurger, I’m still inspired to make the ultimate beer-infused version because I reckon I can a lot more beer into a burger and still make it taste awesome. For example, in my cupboard at home right now I have hot sauce made with IPA, I’ve got Black IPA ketchup, rauchbier BBQ sauce and three types of beer mustard. I’ve made mayonnaise with beer. A beer-battered onion ring, perhaps. Beer cheese. Beer onions is a gimme. Beer chilli, jalapenos or pickles. Beer in the bread dough. Some hop salt on the fries. Some crushed malt instead of sesame seeds. Anyway...

If you like burgers and beers then try the BrewBurger while you can. In the meantime, I’m going to have to come up with a better idea for this book launch… Beer pizza, perhaps? The beer bakery? 

My Golden Pints 2013

These get harder every year. Mostly because my memory is getting worse thanks to all the beer, but still…

Best UK Cask Beer: Oakham Citra

My drinking has shifted in the last year or two and I now drink way more keg beer than cask beer. One of the best casks I had was Portobello’s Pilsner, in The Gunmakers, but it seemed like a one-off barrel of brilliance and I haven’t tasted it as good again. Burning Sky Aurora was amazing and I can’t wait to drink way too much of it next year. But Oakham Citra is becoming one of the best beers in Britain and that’s the best cask beer I’ve had this year (their Green Devil is also ruinously good).

Best UK Keg Beer: Camden Town Indian Summer

A lot of contenders for this one. BrewDog Dead Pony Club is something I find impossible not to order. I’m loving Beavertown’s Gamma Ray. A couple of Siren beers really stood out – Soundwave and Liquid Mistress. Citronvand by Alpha State was a crackling little beer bursting with big hops. My favourite was the beer that I’ve probably had more pints of than any other British beer this year (given that I worked there one day a week, that makes sense, but still…): Camden Town’s Indian Summer. A hopped-up 6%ish IPA-slash-lager, it’s exactly the kind of beer I love. I’ve already requested that it becomes a permanent beer. And goes in cans.

Best UK Bottled or Canned Beer: Partizan Mosaic Saison

Summer Wine Maelstrom has nailed the Double IPA in a way that no other British brewery has – a bottle that I had this summer was unreal. When Dead Pony Club is good it’s unbeatable. Any of the Salopian small-batch stuff is superb. A bottle of Tap East’s APA was fantastic. But the best… Partizan Mosaic Saison was ohmyfuckinggod good, as was the Amarillo version, and as are all the other variations they do on saison.  

Best Overseas Draught Beer: Nomad Karel

Nomad Karel. No question one of the best IPAs I’ve ever tasted and it’s made using only Czech hops. I drank it on a stag do in Prague and all I remember is basically spending two hours saying how much I loved the beer and that it’s the best beer in the world ever. It was so juicily fruity, so clean, so soft and just perfect. I also had plenty of other good ones: a green-hopped pilsner from Schonramer; Eschenbrau’s pilsner in Berlin rocked; Bells Two Hearted was a perfect IPA when I had it in Philadelphia; Uerige Alt from the brewery is an unmissable beer experience; as is rauchbier in Bamberg, where my first taste was Spezial’s; Naparbier’s Back in Black in Barcelona was as good as any black IPA I’ve tasted; since Lagunitas IPA arrived in Britain I’ve got too drunk on it too many times; all of the beers at Social Kitchen and Brewery in San Francisco; and an Oskar Blues Mama’s Little Yella Pils on draft in Philly was beautiful and way hoppier than I’d tasted it before.

Best Overseas Bottled or Canned Beer: Stone & Wood Pacific Ale

I’ve had a lot of Duvel this year and it’s become a fridge staple. FirestoneWalker’s Pivo Pils almost made me propose marriage to David Walker, then I realised how drunk I was and walked about 50 New York blocks home… (I’m just glad I didn’t drink Union Jack in front of him on the same night or it would’ve got really embarrassing). The single most holy-shit-this-is-awesome beer was Boulevard’s Tank 7 which after one sip made me text Mark and tell him to buy bottles immediately. But the beer I fell headoverheels in love with this year was Stone & Wood’s Pacific Ale. I don’t know how they manage to make a beer that’s so bloody delicious.

Best Collaboration Brew: Fyne and Wild Cool as a Cucumber

Cool as a Cucumber by Fyne and Wild. It’s an amazing beer and I want more! The Wild/Burning Sky/Good George Schnoodlepip was also really excellent. 

Best Overall Beer: Nomad Karel

Nomad Karel for the joyous pleasure it gave me while drinking it. I even went back to another bar the next day to drink more (when I should’ve been chilling for a while before a big night out). It must’ve been that cheeky pint which gave me the stamina to still be sitting in a Prague strip club at 5.30am… (LAD!)

Best Branding, Pumpclip or Label: Partizan

The easiest choice this year: Partizan. I love them all. Alec Doherty's artwork rocks.

Best UK Brewery: Partizan

Partizan. I think every beer is excellent and they make exactly the kinds of beers I want to be drinking. Super hoppy saisons, a wonderful singel, banging pale ales, and the dark beers rock.

Best Overseas Brewery: Schlenkerla

I’ve drunk more bottles of Schlenkerla Marzen than almost any other beer this year and I got to go to the tavern in Bamberg. It’s such a weird and esoteric beer yet it’s remarkable. Go to Bamberg if you can – it’s one of the best beer town’s in the world.

Best New Brewery Opening 2013: Burning Sky

Burning Sky. Gorgeous saisons, plus pale ales and IPAs with more hop flavour and depth than almost anyone else. And there’s going to be barrel-aged beers coming soon.

Pub/Bar of the Year: Well and Bucket

The Well and Bucket. It’s my favourite London pub. Cool place, lots of good beers, sliders. And jointly this also goes to The Gunmakers. It’s my new work local and there’s nothing like walking in there and being warmly greeted by the staff – you can also guarantee some of the best-kept cask beer in London.

Best New Pub/Bar Opening 2013: BrewDog Shepherd's Bush

BrewDog Shepherd’s Bush. It’s an insane beer playground and I expect to drink there a lot in 2014.

Beer Festival of the Year: GBBF

I’ve been to shockingly few festivals this year (I’m a bit bored of big old halls and warm, weird beer – I’d rather go to the pub). I’ll never miss GBBF because it’s the best. Going to Braukunst in Munich was a fun experience.

Supermarket of the Year: Waitrose

Waitrose. Though I think Tesco is getting a lot better.

Independent Retailer of the Year: Bottle Shop

Bottle Shop in Canterbury. It always wins my award because I love it. The Beer Boutique in Putney also deserves a mention.

Online Retailer of the Year: AlesByMail

I use AlesByMail more than any other.

Best Beer Book or Magazine: BEER and BeerAdvocate

So there’s this book called Craft Beer World which I think is pretty good… CAMRA’s BEER magazine is always interesting, as is BeerAdvocate magazine (I do write for both of them...). Sadly there’s just a massive lack of general beer writing in more mainstream media, which is always such a shame.

Best Beer Blog or Website: Beervana

I think Beervana is the best beer blog around. Insightful, interesting, informed and it’s the blog which I wish I wrote (and I’m fairly sure I wrote the same thing last year, so I probably should just start writing that kind of thing…).

Best Beer App: Craft Beer London

Craft Beer London. I use it a few times a week and it’s excellent and reliable (and then on the way home I use the KFC finder app…).

Simon Johnson Award for Best Beer Twitterer: Chris Hall

Chris Hall. Definitely one of the most entertaining voices in British beer.

Best Brewery Website/Social media: Camden Town Brewery

I think most are pretty terrible with streams of retweets praising themselves or just general boring posts like “Brewing our lovely bitter again today.” Very few actually get it right. I think Camden Town Brewery are one of the best, and I say that as the person that used to do it but now doesn’t (so with bitterness that it’s now better without me!). It’s conversational and interesting and not a stream of bullshit – nice work, Zoe!

Food and Beer Pairing of the Year: Schlenkerla Marzen and everythingI’ve spent half the year trying to figure out great beer and food pairings (for my new book! It’s called Beer & Food! You can pre-order it NOW!). My new favourite beer to go with food is definitely Schlenkerla Rauchbier Marzen. It’s capable of some of the most unexpected and brilliant things (Try it with stilton! Try it with chocolate!). A simple one is often the best and with a spit-roast chicken it’s unbeatable. My other favourite new pairing is Sam Smith’s Oatmeal Stout with a good rare steak, parsnip chips and horseradish. It’s amazing.