2009 Beer of the Year Preview
2009 was a great year for the BeerCast, we managed to get through 63 beers over the space of 16 podcasts, attend several beer festivals, and unleash a few new panellists on the podcasting public. As things wind down over Christmas we’ll be turning our attention towards the turn of the year – which means our annual BeerCast Beer of the Year Show. We tally up the scores achieved by each ale over the last twelve months, and take the four highest scoring away to a secret location for a re-sample. Which beer will follow on from Hop Back Summer Lightning and become our BOTY for 2009? Here are the four contenders.
First up (in order of when we initially scored them), you have to go all the way back to New Year’s Day and a snowy evening in Stockholm. Although our Swedish Special eventually hit the airwaves in March, and having been recorded on an iPhone it sounded like we were lisping underwater, our first finalist made it all the way through the year in the top four placings. Carnegie Baltic Porter 2008 (5.5%) came top of BeerCast 28, despite being brewed by mega-behemoth Carlsberg, who bought its Gothenburg creator Pripps Bryggeri. This sweet, earthy porter scored 32½/40 and thankfully we managed to track some down in the UK for our BOTY show.
Next is the only UK beer that made it through to our final four, the flagship ale from Cornwall’s St Austell Brewery, Tribute (4.2%). This classic English bitter won the highly competitive SouthWest Special of BeerCast 33, which produced several high-scoring beers. Recording a tally of 40½/50, it drew praise for its balance of malt and citrus, including two 9/10 scores. English session ales have traditionally done well in BeerCast BOTY shows, with Coniston Bluebird Bitter and Thwaites Double Century respectively making it through to the first two end of year spectaculars. Neither won though – can the self-styled “Taste of Cornwall” fare better?
Our final two beers hail from over the Atlantic, coming from two heavyweights of the American craft brewing scene. That’s no co-incidence, as smaller-scale producers are very rarely found in the UK. Things are changing though, thanks to importers such as James Clay, and specialist beer retailers like Norfolk’s Beers of Europe, York’s The Bottle, and Edinburgh’s own Cornelius. Our third beer is Stone Ruination IPA (7.7%), a “liquid poem to the glory of the hop” from California. Ruination blasted to the top of our leaderboard (where it remains) in our IPA Battle, BeerCast 36 in July, ending up with a 38/40 score for an almost perfect 95% rating. The balance of hops and alcohol make this truly special, and as it garnered the first ever BeerCast 10 score (from MrB, of course) – it has to be the favourite for our 2009 BOTY show.
The final beer that made it through is also our most recently drunk – coming from last week’s Christmas Special. Anchor’s festive beers have done very well in the past, but their 2009 beer was gazumped in spectacular fashion by Goose Island Christmas Ale 2009 (7.0%). Racking up 25/30 it finished with the second-highest score of the year, ironically bumping Goose Island IPA out of the top four in the process. The Belgian malts and Crystal hops combine for the wintery tastes, and although our panel felt it wasn’t as classically festive as others they tried, it was still head and shoulders above the rest. This could be a dark horse for the title, particularly as a Christmas beer has won previously, Anchor Christmas Ale 2006, won our first ever BOTY show.
So as our list stretches from the afore-mentioned Stone Ruination IPA on 95% down to Dieu du Ciel’s terrifying Péché Mortel coffee-infused imperial stout on 14%, we can look back at another great drinking year on the BeerCast. We’ll be recording the BOTY show at New Year, and it’ll be up sometime within the first couple of weeks of January. Stay tuned for surprises, controversy, and personal highlights, and in the meantime everyone associated with the BeerCast wishes our readers and listeners a fantastic Christmas and New Year, and all the best for 2010.
