Top Beers of 2024 (1-10)

So here we go again, the top 10. It’s been a bit of a year for collaboration beers this year, many great brewers have been working together to create some wonderful "mash-up" beers, four out of the ten are colabs! I seem to have included more Siren beers than usual this year, perhaps my tastes are narrowing or maybe I just haven't cast my net wide enough this year, I must try harder next year!

1. Putty 2024 (Verdant) - An excellent Putty this year, such a totemic beer for Verdant and particularly splendid having on tap from the wonderful Fox and Hounds pub in Caversham. Thick and unctious, delicious flavours of tropical fruits, limes and white wine grapes alongside the classic Verdant yeast funk, hides it's substantial 8% ABV very well long may the tradition continue!

2. Destination (Burning Sky, Elusive, Kernel) - A re-make of the same beer last year but with a slightly tweaked recipe, even better IMO. Classic Westy vibes, grapefruit, fruity with a bold bitterness that keeps you coming back for another sip, wonderful stuff!

3. Guess the Hop A (Siren) - The first in the "Guess the Hop" series from Siren this year, probably the easiest one to guess for me as it had two of my favourit hops in it, Citra and Mosaic. This classic combination resides in many brews but seldom done with such precision, a moreish and flavoursome brew! (I hope it becomes a regular thing!)

4. Living (Elusive, Burnt Mill) - West Coast maestros Burnt Mill teamed up with local brewer Elusive to deliver a stunning West Coast IPA. Everything you'd want from the style, citrus fruits, grapefruit and a mouth puckering bitterness on the finish, Living is a dry and bitter West Coast IPA, with bags of Chinook, Mosaic Incognito, Citra and Centennial hops, brilliant!

5. Lizard (Verdant, Duration) - Brewed with the masters of hop-forward hazy beers using Verdant’s yeast and Nelson Bliss a late harvest version of Nelson Sauvin hops specially processed to enhance sweet tropical flavours. Evolving notes of lychee, citrus, mango, and white wine with great balance.

6. Puttty 2024 (Verdant) - Verdant must have sucked up the worlds supply of Galaxy, Mosaic and Azacca hops like an insatiable black hole and then pummelled them violently into this crazy big relative of their most famous beer. The 10% bigger brother of Putty this was a standout beer for me in 2024!

7. Dark & Perilous Nights (Siren) - An extraordinary collaboration with Florida's J. Wakefield. You get rich aromas of dark sugar and toffee, with a comforting chocolate fudge flavour profile, warming spirit complexity and an uber-slick mouthfeel. It's been on my list before and if they re-brew it again next year I suspect it'll be there again!

8. London Black (Anspach & Hobday) - This lovely Porter was on my list last year, this year it's here again since they release 440ml cans of London Black. I tried one back in the Summer and it was delicious, not quite up the the superlative standard of the brewery tap in Bermondsey but not far off!

9. Expressions, Citra (Siren) - A series of beers made by Siren, each featuring a different hop. This one showcased Citra (one of my favourites) and was delicious, Citra is the superstar of the hop world, widely adored for its citrussy, grapefruit aromas and bold tropical fruit flavours . Hazy, dense and full of flavour this is a worthy platform for this transformative Hop.

10. Leapling (Siren, Verdant) - Siren welcomed Verdant to Finchampstead for a long overdue collaboration making an IPA together a long overdue thing to do. They co-pitched both breweries' house yeast and dreamt up a US meets NZ hop profile in a triple dry-hop! The result gave punchy aromas of lime, guava and gooseberry, with a soft body and minimal bitterness, a top brew for 2024, let's hope they do another one next year!

New Saturday Brew

Had one of these last night, it's from my favourite producers, Verdant. 

Called "Vanity Metrics" it's a delicious pale ale flavoured with Motueka hops from NZ, it's a real lime bomb, so refreshing and with the classic smooth creamy Verdant mouthfeel, a brilliant beer.

Time

I was going through some old photo's the other day and found this blury image. It's from back in the early 80s when I was a student up in London, the chap in the picture was one of my mates back then and we lived in the same block of flats. He was a Welsh lad studying for a degree in Biology and I was doing Chemical Engineering we both liked photography (and a few pints) and spent a glorious Summer in 1982 running around East London snapping random pictures of fairly pointless things! I lost touch with him after we graduated and hadn't thought much about him until he turned up on my TV screen one day several years ago. His name is Iolo Williams and he hosted a Welsh nature show and more recently does Springwatch and that whole wildlife series on the BBC, I always remember him being fanatical about North Wales and nature, funny how the intersection of people, life and time pans out!

Smart Phones

So, today is the shortest day of the year, that time when our ancestors used to have anxiety attacks about whether the Sun would ever return and warm their crops, or not... These days we know better, but to be honest having survived a few dozen generations they should have done as well! Anyway, unlike folk today they didn't have smart phones so how they thrived back then would be a complete mystery to modern Sapiens...

Friday Smirk

J&M pointing out the last resort of many (usually left-leaning) intellectual blagards, the "ad-hom". The only good thing about it is that when you get to the point of being called a racist (or sexist) you've probably won the argument (unless you actually are racist or a sexist etc.)

Other People

 Love this, totally true, no greater impediment to productivity than "other people"...

New Bond Street

My goodness, some of the shops down New Bond Street go to town with their Christmas decorations! In the picture above is the Chanel effort, pretty decent! Others were even more elaborate, the whole street itself has become a tourist destination, thousands of people walk along it (blocking it up!) simply taking pictures, but not buying anything! I suppose it's good for PR, I can't help thinking that it's not much cop for business though! 

The Dior display was even more complicated, see picture below!

Blue Sky Thinking

We've been having some awfully dull weather in the UK this last few weeks and finally the skys cleared just in time for our trip to London last weekend. The clear up allowed me to take this Winter dusk scene looking out across the Thames from Waterloo bridge, love the slight amber light from the setting Sun reflecting off of the buildings, for me this view never gets old!

London Stories

Snapped the other evening while walking back through Westminster to the tube train. Big Ben looking splendid as ever but WTF is the little green thing next to the main tower, I didn't notice it when I took the picture but it looks to me like some kind of weird "Batman" style projection onto the clouds or possibly a strange optical artifact from the streetlights, anyway, makes an otherwise ordinary photo slightly more interesting..!