2010 A year remembered

So another year has gone by and 2011 is nearly here so what happened in 2010? Well for a start there was the launch of Ireland's first beer consumer group called Beoir, following the likes of CAMRA in the UK and EBCU which covers all Europe and Beoir will likely join.

In Ireland we saw the opening of a number of new craft breweries as well as some new beer bars around the country.

Cask ale has been making a slow comeback with a few of the new bars serving cask ale even if its limited. I doubt cask ale can make the sort of comeback seen in Britain because they never lost it, only stopped its demise where as Ireland had not seen cask ale in decades until recent years.

So without further waffle I give you my 2010 golden pint awards with thanks to Mark Dredge of Pencil and Spoon fame for the template.

The Golden Pints Beer Awards 2010

Best Irish Draught

A tough one but for me it was Helvick Gold from Dungarvan Brewing Company. On cask it was mouthwateringly good, refreshing and even people who normally shy away from cask enjoyed it.

Best Irish Bottled Beer

Hand down it was O'Hara's pale ale from the Carlow Brewing Company. Ireland finally has a US style IPA in bottle and its damn good.

Best Overseas Draught Beer

A tough one indeed. No clear winner stands out as I had so many wonderful beers on tap. If I have to pick one, using the criteria of if it was the only beer available to me then I would have to pick Speakeasy's Big Daddy purely from a drinkability perspctive. There are better IPA's but few that are as sessionable. I drank a lot of these in San Francisco.

Best Overseas Bottled Beer

Another tough call but considering how many I bought and drank I will need to go with hopfenweisse from the Schneider & Brooklyn collaboration. Pure magic.

Best Overall Beer

How do define this? In 2010 I had my first taste of Westvleteren 12 which many consider the best beer in the world. It was fantastic but not worth the hype. I think I will go with Pliny the elder from the Russian river brewery in California. Racer 5 being a close runner up.

Best Pumpclip or Label

Just as beernut cheated for this one, I also must because when Grainne showed me her business card I was speechless for a few moments until I said "That's the best brewery name I have ever seen and the logo its fantastic". I think I repeated this a few times. The Metalman Brewery, named after the sculpture of the same name in waterford.

Best Irish Brewery

For dedication and some of the best beer in Ireland and for concentrating on bottles and cask, Dungarvan Brewing Company gets my vote. Cormac and the team have created a great following in Dungarvan among existing pubs which its no easy task in Ireland. Also they have popped up at every food and beer related event in the country and Cormac still found time to brew beer.

Best Overseas Brewery

This one was easy. I visited a lot of breweries in 2010 but for pure entertainment at the brewery and quality of beer this crown goes to Lagunitas in California. I spent a memorable afternoon there this summer.

Pub/Bar of the Year Beer

A tough one because The Bull & Castle is my favourite still but I arm going to go with L Mulligan Grocer because of all the little touches like no Guinness, no TV, soft music that you can talk over and listen to people, the aprons the stadd wear, the brown paper bag of sweets you get with the bill. Colin and the staff have turned the northside pub in to a beer haven.

Festival of the Year

Franciscan well Easter Fest was the best for me, though having not gone to any in other countries I can't compare.

Supermarket of the Year

Following Beernuts assessment I name Superquinn simply because of the special on craft beer they did during the year. And most superquinns have craft beer unlike many other Irish supermarkets. It is sad however that our choice of supermarkets for craft beer is so small.

Independent Retailer of the Year & Online Retailer of the Year

I'm combining these two because Drinkstore covers both. This tiny off license opposite L Mulligan Grocer launched its online shop and has probably the most comprehensive range of beer in the country.

Best Beer Book or Magazine

The only one I read all year was Hops & Glory by Pete brown and since I only got it for Christmas I have not finished it so it wins by default.

Best Beer Blog or Website

The one I consistently read most often is thebeernut so he gets my vote with a worthy second place mention to Al over on fuggled. Though really I enjoy and read them both equally so it was more a toss of a coin as to which came first.

Best Beer Twitterer

Hardknott dave for consistently good tweets and of course soap opera entertainment with back and forth comments with hardknottAnn who you would swear its not in fact in the next room at all.

Best Brewery Online

I can't argue with beernut over this one. Dungarvan Brewing Company has done a phenominal job online this year.

Food and Beer Pairing of the Year

While not new, I did not come up with anything else this year so Galway hooker pale ale with seafood pie at The Bull & Castle takes this one.

In 2011 I’d Most Like To…

Set up a brewpub, in order for that to happen the government needs to make it easier for microbreweries to open. Oh and I would not mind winning the lotto to finance such a venture.

Open Category: Most Ridiculous Brewery

And the Michael O'Leary award for Ryanair style advertising goes to none other than Brewdog for their ridiculous advertising shenanigans. Brewing stupidly high ABV beers in an attempt to get some cheap advertising was getting old very fast. Thankfuly their End of History beer should be an end to it. When not trying to be media whores, Brewdog actually brew some fantastic beers so lets hope they go back to basics in 2011 and stick to brewing great beer.

So there it is for another year. The Irish craft beer tank had been gaining momentum and maybe in 2011 will come out all guns blazing.

*If there are mistakes here, please excuse me as I wrote most of it on my android tablet pc which is awkward to say the least. I borrowed a computer to add in the links quickly. I am currently in Alabama visiting my Mother in law for Christmas.