Golden Pints 2013

Mark Dredge who blogs at Pencil and Spoon is inviting people to nominate their pubs and beers of the year. Below is my, admittedly quite traditionalist,  take on Golden Pints 2013.

Best UK Cask Beer

Holt’s Bitter, the world’s best beer when on top form.

Best UK Keg Beer

Apart from a couple of pints of Heineken at football matches, don't think I’ve drunk any.

Best UK Bottled or Canned Beer

Fuller’s 1845.

Best Overseas Draught Beer

Uerige Alt.

Best Overseas Bottled or Canned Beer

Schlenkerla Rauchmärzen, Guinness Foreign Extra Stout.

Best Collaboration Brew

No idea.

Best Overall Beer

Holt’s Bitter.

Best Branding, Pumpclip or Label

Draught Bass.

Best UK Brewery

Holt’s.

Best Overseas Brewery

Schlenkerla.

Best New Brewery Opening 2013

No idea.

Pub/Bar of the Year

The Lamb and The Grapes in Eccles, The Hare and Hounds and The Unicorn in Manchester, all proper working-class boozers selling cheap, well-kept cask beer.

Best New Pub/Bar Opening 2013

Hope Inn, Stockport’s only brewpub until The Magnet gets its brewing operation off the ground in the New Year.

Beer Festival of the Year

Stockport, Fuller’s ESB in top condition.

Supermarket of the Year

Sainsbury’s for Guinness FES, Tesco's for Fuller’s 1845.

Independent Retailer of the Year

Wouldn’t know.

Online Retailer of the Year

Beers of Europe.

Best Beer Book or Magazine

BEER, despite Roger Protz’s regular howlers.

Best Beer Blog or Website

Shut Up About Barclay Perkins, Zythophile.

Best Beer App

Haven’t a clue.

Simon Johnson Award for Best Beer Twitterer

No idea.

Best Brewery Website/Social media

Im Füchsen and Augustiner are both pretty entertaining.

Food and Beer Pairing of the Year

Pork pie and a pint of bitter, as ever. Sarah Hughes Dark Ruby mild and a cheese cob is a close second though.

CAMRA calling

I've been a member of CAMRA for four years - having attended their beer festivals for about ten years before that - but last night was the first time I'd been to a CAMRA meeting. So why did I finally join CAMRA and why did it take me four years to attend a meeting of my local branch, Stockport and South Manchester?

Unlike the stereotypical non-active CAMRA member who joins for the benefits of getting into beer festivals for free and discounts in Wetherspoons, I joined for two reasons: the role CAMRA had played in the early 1970's in saving cask beer and more importantly the work it was doing now to save pubs, improve beer quality etc.  That I didn't turn up at a CAMRA meeting for four years is due to inertia and being involved with other organisations and societies. It was through blogging that I got to know more about what CAMRA was doing locally and decided I should get involved.

I'm not promising to become a super-active CAMRA member, but I am planning to attend more meetings and events of my branch and lend a hand where I can.

Beer writing and the Dunning-Kruger effect

I've been reading about the Dunning-Kruger effect recently. It's a theory put foward by psychologists of that name which basically states that less intelligent people overestimate their abilities because they're not bright enough to spot their mistakes while conversely more intelligent people underestimate their abilities for the opposite reason.

The effect can be seen in lots of different fields but one that strikes me as especially apt is beer writing.  On the one hand are people paid to write on beer who proclaim themselves "one of the world's leading beer writers" or "an internationally known authority on beer" while recycling myths or just making things up; on the other, unpaid bloggers like Ron Pattinson at Shut Up about Barclay Perkins and Martyn Cornell at Zythophile whose writing is based on extensive research in their spare time and rigorous analysis of primary sources, correcting their own misconceptions and overturning orthodox opinion where necessary.

The idea behind the Dunning-Kruger effect isn't a new one - I suppose it's a variant of the saying "An empty vessel makes most noise" - but it's good to have a scientific label to stick on it.

Cheers Ron

One of the best things about blogging is the ability to discuss with and learn from people online.  But it's obviously better to meet them in person.

It was especially good last night to meet up for a few pints with Ron Pattinson, the beer and brewing writer, who is in Manchester on a family holiday. Ron's blog Shut Up About Barclay Perkins is a model of research and analysis of primary sources and I'm looking forward to reading the results of his digging in the Boddingtons archives yesterday

I hope Ron enjoyed the different beers and pubs, from the tiled ex-Wilsons Peveril and cosy Grey Horse to the trendy Port Street Beer House, and that he and his family enjoy the rest of their stay in Manchester.