Goatee Phil presents the Goatee Awards 2018

The Goatee Awards 2018

The Brewery Shades, Crawley - an excellent selection of ales, as always

If you're a beer drinker, I'm not sure there's been a better time to be alive. Thanks to the impact of the craft beer revolution there are now more microbreweries in the UK than there have ever been. You might suppose that at some point we will reach critical mass, and the market will start to shrink, but there's no sign of it happening yet. 

On the down side, this was the year in which the torchbearers for good beer, CAMRA, failed to pass a motion at their AGM which would have enshrined their support for ALL good beer, not just the cask ale that they had always championed. This may not turn out to be that significant, or especially damaging, but at a time when cask sales are dropping CAMRA's credibility has taken a damaging hit. Let's hope that it isn't fatal, for them or for cask.

My 2018, beer-wise, has definitely been memorable. Trips to Germany and the United States introduced me to many wonderful new beers. Brighton, where I have lived since 2001, continues to play host to some fantastic pubs, including many new ones. There have been at least a dozen tap takeovers, from major UK and US brewers, and multi-award winning local beer writer, brewer and broadcaster Emma Inch curated the first ever Brighton and Hove Week, which was a great showcase for local beers, brewers and pubs.

My Best of 2017 is currently the most viewed of my blog posts. I will be chuffed and flattered if the 2018 version is half as successful. It certainly covers more ground. This year, as well as my favourite pub, brewer and book, I've chosen my favourite new pub, my favourite beers (UK and non-UK), favourite event and biggest disappointment. I hope you find it interesting and please do send me comments, both favourable and unfavourable, using the various social media on which you'll find me.

Here's to 2019!

Best Pub: Bison Craft House (Hove)

Runners-up : Watchmakers Arms (Hove), Brighton Bier Haus (Brighton), Evening Star (Brighton)

The Hove arm of the burgeoning Bison empire has established itself as a key player in the city’s beer scene almost, it seems, without trying. Did Hove need a tiny high street bar with an impressive, rotating line-up of six varied beers on tap, along with a wall of fridges full of in-demand brews? You might have said no but now that there is such a place, how did we ever manage without it?

Bison Craft House is on Church Road, just a short walk from Palmeira Square. It’s a former retail shop and would qualify as a micro-pub if size and layout were the only criteria. The bar is on a raised platform at the back and in front of it is a long, refectory-style table with seating either side. One wall has further small tables and seating while the other wall houses the fridges. There’s also an outside deck which makes a great space for people-watching when the weather’s decent.

If you wanted to be sniffy you could point out that the Craft House doesn’t sell cask ale (an omission that they have corrected at their new North Laine premises in Brighton) but I have to confess that it has never bothered me.

The beers on tap are roughly one third local brewers to two thirds national and they do not shy away from strong brews. Imperial IPAs and stouts are conspicuous by their presence and they also feature sours regularly. Their policy on what beers to feature makes them a fine showcase for the current strength of craft beer.

Best new pub : The Foghorn (Portslade)

Runners-up : Holler Tap Room (Brighton), Southwick Beer Engine (Southwick), Beer No Evil (Worthing)

I won't lie, I have been eagerly awaiting the opening of the Foghorn since my good friend, Alan Meadows, drew my attention to a planning application to open a micropub in Portslade. By coincidence I was, at the time, writing a blog post about the pubs in BN41 - Portslade and Fishersgate. I ended it by mentioning the possibility of this new venture and was then surprised, a couple of weeks later, to get a tweet from Tommy, one of the Foghorn team, thanking me for the heads-up.

And now, finally, here it is. The photo is from opening night when it was comparatively quiet! It may be early days but the evidence is that the team have got most things right. It's a small, cosy space, with the standard slightly raised tables that most micropubs have. Lighting is low and the vibe on the first night was guarded excitement. Everyone I spoke to knew other similar pubs and everyone liked the atmosphere.

Crucially, the beer selection was spot on : Vibrant Forest, Holler, Downland, Burning Sky and Bristol Beer Factory on cask, the Kernel, Cloudwater and Brighton Bier on keg. They've also clearly learnt from Bison North Laine and the Craft Beer Co by providing a printed list of all the beers, ciders and wines on each table.

It's looking very good so far.

Best Brewer: The Kernel

Runners-up: Vibrant Forest, Cloudwater, Burning Sky

In these times of bright brewery logos and beer names so elaborate as to be unwieldy (I'm looking at you, Weird Beard and Verdant), there is a virtue in simplicity. Design and naming does not come any simpler than The Kernel. Their labels are plain and brown, listing only the brewery, beer name, abv and the hop and malt varieties used. 

I'm a literature graduate and when I discovered that The Kernel's founder, Evin O'Riordan, wrote his PhD on the Irish novelist and playwright Samuel Beckett, everything seemed to make perfect sense. If you haven't read any Beckett, I strongly urge you to do so and I'm sure you'll see what I mean. Better still, go see Waiting for Godot.

But to the beers. The Kernel do not appear in the press as often as, say, Burning Sky, Tiny Rebel, Cloudwater, et al, but that only adds to the mystique. That or, to use a much-used cliche, they have decided to let the beer do the talking. Every Kernel beer I've drunk this year, whether a session beer, IPA, stout or imperial strength brew, has had something to say but perhaps the best was the extraordinary IPA Double Citra Mosaic (9.3%), a yeasty, spicy gem.

Forget that fried chicken dude, this is the Kernel to salute!

Best UK Beer: Arbor Yakima American IPA (7.0%)

Runners-up: Dark Star - Six Hop IPA (6.5%), Downland - Devil's Dyke Porter (5.0%), Burning Sky – Aurora Pale (5.6%)

It’s always nice to find exciting new brews and I’ve certainly sampled plenty this year. Several beers from Cloudwater have been memorable, with their DDH Ekuanot Mosaic Pale the pick. Burning Sky continue to turn out exceptional beers, in particular their blended brews, with their Blended Stock Ale my particular favourite. But one bottle, can or pint doesn't trump a beer that is outstanding every time you drink it.

Last year I picked Bristol's Arbor Ales as my favourite brewery and although this year I came across their brews rather less frequently I did drink Yakima American IPA on a fairly regular basis. What particularly impressed me was that this included pints from the cask, from a bottle and also from a can. On every occasion it was exceptional. It is a classic, juicy, hop-forward American IPA with, as the name suggests, hops from the Yakima Valley: Amarillo, Cascade, Chinook, Citra and Summit. It has a tang of toffee, strong hints of orange and a sharp hoppy aftertaste. It's a classic!

Best non-UK Beer: Rogue Ales - Combat Wombat Sour IPA (7.4%)

Runners-up: Heidenpeters - Orange Flandern (6%), Cigar City – Jai Alai IPA (6.7%), Braxton – Dead Blow Stout (7.2%)

The best sour beers don't even taste like sours. Instead they aspire to the status of lambics, to blended soured ales, aged in barrels until the flavour is so complex you'd swear you were drinking red wine, no it's cider, no wait - it's an IPA! Combat Wombat is such a beer.

It was the undoubted highlight of the recent Rogue Ales tap takeover at the Brighton Bier Haus. After trying it there I was delighted to find a 750ml bottle at Trafalgar Wines. Once I got it home I was able to confirm that it was indeed as good as I remembered. It beat off strong opposition too, from two beers sampled on our summer trip to the States - Cigar City's fruity Jai Alai IPA and the heavy, licoricey Dead Blow Stout from Kentucky's Braxton brewery - not forgetting the extraordinary Orange Flandern from Berlin's Heidenpeters Microbrewery, sampled during my visit to Berlin.

Best thing I’ve read: Pete Brown – Miracle brew

Runners-up: Boak and Bailey – 20^th Century Pub, Tim Webb and Joe Stange – Good Beer Guide to Belgium (8^th ed), Roger Protz - IPA: a legend in our time

The beauty of Pete Brown’s new book Miracle brew is that it has such a simple premise: Pete examines the history and importance of each of the key components in beer. There is a chapter each on barley, water, hops and yeast but, just in case the reader becomes anxious that s/he is in for yet another tedious description of the brewing process, he lobs in liberal helpings of his own idiosyncratic journeys as a beer writer.

This includes trips to Warminster in Wiltshire, to visit Britain’s most celebrated maltings; to Bamberg in Germany, home of the smoked beer Schlenkerla; to Washington state’s revered Yakima Valley; and to Faversham in Kent, for the annual hop harvest. Pete brings every aspect of his subject to vivid life. If you’d been with him, you feel, you’d have had a whale of a time. Reading this book is very nearly as good.

Best thing I’ve heard: Fermentation Beer and Brewing Radio

OK, I know there are other podcasts out there, even YouTube beer offerings. I will get to them eventually but I will still be following multi-award winning broadcaster Emma Inch on her soon-to-be fortnightly show Fermentation Beer and Brewing Show. Still the best way to keep tabs on the local brewery scene, the highlights are usually the interviews, with this year's pick the fascinating story of Miles Jenner, Head Brewer at Harveys. Also, a big thumbs-up to Emma's regular foil, beer sommelier Jane Peyton. She also voted Combat Wombat as her beer of the year so she gets top marks from me!

Best Event: Brighton and Hove Beer Week

Runners-up: Rogue Ales Tap Takeover (Brighton Bier Haus), Belgian Beer Tasting (Great British Beer Festival)

I’ve already written a lengthy piece in praise of Brighton and Hove Beer Week in an earlier blog post. Suffice to say that Emma Inch pulled off a significant coup in arranging a programme of events that managed to cover a wide geographical area - Brighton, Hove, Bevendean, Queens Park - as well as a wide range of pub styles. 

There were prestige events such as Harveys' head brewer Miles Jenner hosting a tasting on the i360, games nights at venues as different as the Brunswick and the World's End, a mini beer fest at Horatio's Bar on the Palace Pier and a two-way fun run organised by the Watchmakers Arms. 

The most significant achievement was the showcasing of Sussex breweries. There are so many of them now that we need the Brighton and Hove Beer Week just to keep up with them!

Biggest Disappointment of the Year: Goatee Phil’s Hove Craft Beer Trail

I'd been toying with the idea of doing a beer tour for a long while and even went on the first ever Brighton Beer Tour organised by Beer and Brew, aka Rob Parker, to get ideas on how I might go about organising my own. 

Rob is a qualified beer sommelier and his approach was quite scientific. I knew that I couldn't compete with that, nor could I claim any kind of expertise. I'm just a fan. But I did realise that I could come up with a credible tour of Hove. There were four good pubs within a two mile radius that I could include and I had observed the changes in that part of the town. I walked the route a few times, muttering a commentary into my phone as I walked.

Then, when I felt that I was ready, I did a dry run with Charita and Alan Wares. It went well. Charita filmed a lot of it and as I watched the footage I thought I sounded interesting without being too pompous. I put the event up on Eventbrite at, I thought, a reasonable price and waited for the tickets to fly out. They didn't. At all.

I even organised a second date and paid for a Facebook ad. Nada.

The timing probably didn't help. Brighton and Hove are not short of beery events.Brighton and Hove Beer Week had only finished a week before my first date. Rob's tours are monthly and there are usually one or two tap takeovers in town each month. There's a lot of events available, for both local and visitor, at any time of the year.

No hard feelings. Will I try it again? Watch this space ....

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