I’m joining in with the Golden Pint Awards. It’s all just a bit of fun, I may not have tried all of the beers that you have, so here’s my 2012 in beer. Thanks to Mark and Andy for organising it.
Best UK Draught Beer:
Winner: Magic Rock High Wire
Runner up: Buxton Axe Edge. Honourable mentions: Lovibonds Sour Grapes. Hawkshead NZPA.
Best UK Bottled or Canned Beer:
Winner: Buxton Imperial Black
Runner up: Thornbridge Raven. Honourable mentions: Kernel / Redemption Big Brick Red Rye Ale & Adnams Solebay Celebratory Beer.
Best Overseas Draught Beer:
Winner: Mikkeller Sort Gul. Runner Up: Ska Brewing Modus Hoperandi
Best Overseas Bottled or Canned Beer: Smuttynose Imperial Stout (2007). Honourable mention: Russian River Pliny the Elder (thanks to @Toby_SR for sharing).
Best Overall Beer: Buxton Imperial Black
Best Pumclip or Label: Red Willow, a brand where less is more (sorry Toby, I couldn’t resist)
Best UK Brewery: Buxton Brewery. Honourable mentions: Magic Rock, Thornbridge, Kernel
Best Overseas Brewery: Mikkeller
Pub/Bar of the Year: Friends of Ham (Leeds). Honourable mentions: North Bar (Leeds), The Grove (Hudds) and The Sparrow (Bradford) Fantastic pubs, I just don’t get to them often enough.
Supermarket of the Year: Booths
Beer Festival of the Year: Independent Manchester Beer Convention
Independent Retailer of the Year: Beer Ritz
Online Retailer of the Year: Beer Merchants
Best Beer Blog or Website: Joint Winners: Beersay and Oh Beery Me
Runner Up: Boak & Bailey. Honourable mentions: Probably Due to Network Congestion (pdtnc), HopZine, The Good Stuff, Ghostdrinker.
Best Beer Twitterer: @Filrd
Food and Beer Pairing of the Year: Black pudding scotch egg & Mikkeller Sort Gul (at Friends of Ham). Also a superb meal at Mr Foleys back in April, cooked up by Tyler Kiley and matched with Brooklyn beers.
In 2013 I’d Most Like To: More beer festivals, more brew days to gain brewing experience, more beer in general. Watch this space (famous last words).
Open Categories:
My ‘Go To’ beer: Hawkshead Lager
Most helpful brewers if you are a homebrewer and have an imagination that moves faster than your actual brewing abilities: In no particular order….
- Dominic – Thornbridge
- Jeff – Lovibonds
- Matt- Hawkshead
- Ol – Roosters
- Jay – Quantum
- James – Sandstone
- James – Buxton
- Ade – Saltaire
- Gregg – Weird Beard Brew Co
- Brian – Bitches Brew Co
- Rob – Copper Dragon
- Helpful homebrewers too, but too many to mention. You know who you are.
broadfordbrewer 
Thanks for the shoutout mateeeeyyyy
Deserved.
Given a mutual love of Hoppiness and Darkness, I was always going to agree with many of these. Three I would add – the Sauvignon Aged Magic 8 Ball that Magic Rock brought down to the Brodies Tap takeover was pretty special. I adored Oskar Blues beers when I discovered them in the US this autumn – would be lovely if someone would start importing them, especially the Ten Fidy imperial stout. Finally, de Molen Hemel & Eerde has been a regular item on my shopping list at Bacchanalia over the last few months. Having spent a fair number of weekends in Leeds this year, I would agree on your pub choices. Friends of Ham can be a bit young and trendy, but the beer and charcuterie are superb, and the staff very friendly. Also love North and it’s baby brother, Alfred’s. Finally, anyone who has never been to the Grove needs to find an excuse for a wasted afternoon in Huddersfield. Cheers.
It wasn’t until I had finished my post and read it back that I realised my choices and their penchant for hoppy and dark. I love Magic 8 Ball but haven’t had a sniff of it this year, which will change now their bottling is back up and running (and I should be getting to the pub more often). Looking fwd to trying some Brodies beer in 2013 and if I could get hold of some Oscar Blues then I would be a happy man!
One beer I have forgotten all about is the De Molen Hel & Verdoemenis, a magnificent beer!
Cheers for the comments.
A double mention Dave, I am truly honoured especially in such fantastic company. Looking forward to raising a glass with you sometime very soon in 2014. Cheers bud