Craft Beer 2018 Review

So, it's that time of year again, time to look back over the previous year's stuff, it's a tradition, a bit like when incompetent people fill their online calendars up with meetings labelled "catch-up" and "review" to make themselves look busy.

Let's start with one of my favourite 2018 topics, craft beers, here's my top ten for the year..

1. Low Side - A Siren beer (the first of many) done in collaboration with Finback of New York, a hazy strong IPA that was about as balanced as a balanced thing should be, wonderful stuff.

2. Muse - Drunk back in March at the Rake in Borough Market, made by Gipsy Hill and Boxcar a sessionable New England style IPA that simply tasted as though it should be much, much bigger, a triumph!

3. Affogato - One of a series of four coffee flavoured beers made by Siren, this one was pale in colour but loaded with rich, creamy coffee roast flavour, a beer that beggared belief.

4. Hop Fizz - My first "Brut IPA", and completely lush. Hops for days and a Champagne, Brioche dryness that was spot on.

5. Arise - A super beer by Burning Sky, drunk at the Hoxton in Holborn from a just opened cask - super fresh and perfectly satisfying.

6. Fabulist - This one was from Magic Rock up in Huddersfield, a dank and hazy concoction that was perfect for the hot Summer we had, consumed at the Fox and Hounds in Caversham.

7. Millionaire - Almost a "mainstream" beer nowadays since you can buy it in Waitrose. This stout by the Wild Beer Company tastes like a salted caramel, chocolate and milk shake, thick and dark like engine-oil, but is completely sessionable at only 4.7%, a result.

8. The Sky was Pink - Another Siren masterpiece, this IPA flavoured with hibiscus, Mandarina and Hallertau hops was beautifully crushable in the (now long forgotten) sunshine!

9. Suspended in Space - Part of a growing family of "Suspended In ..." beers from Siren, this one stuck out for me, probably because of the Mosaic and Citra hops used in it, a crowd pleasing fruit-bomb with a 6.5% sting in the tail.

10. Limoncello - One of my all time favourites, sunk at the 5th birthday party at the Siren brewery. This lemony flavoured double IPA is really hard to come by as it's so popular among aficionados! Not even the "beast from the East" could put me off, consumed in the car-park of an industrial unit in the middle of a blizzard.. (yes really!)