Tuesday 3 January 2012

Golden Pints Awards 2011 - The Votes Have Been Counted.


Mr Rick Furzer, over on the Gastroturf blog, has painstakingly collated all the nomination entries for the 2011 Golden Pints Awards. Hats off to Rick, as there were 49 entries in total and it must have been a right pain in the arse to locate, list and link all of them.

Being the curious sort that I am, I thought that I would go through them all and tally up the various nominations in each categories. So that is what I have done. It makes for interesting reading most notably how quickly new breweries and their beers have managed to win recognition, kudos and establish themselves in the collective conscience of beer bloggers and beer drinkers.

The range of entries, in terms of the number of beer styles and breweries nominated indicates that there is a diversity of choice and tastes available not just from UK breweries but also internationally.

When putting this overall summative list together, I counted only those nominations that were listed as first or joint first on people's submissions. I haven't counted the runners up. One person changed their mind from their original Golden Pints Awards blogpost and updated on a later blog. In this instance,  I have included both nominations. If the person (that's you, Tandleman) wishes me to remove one of his entries then I will do that. It makes no difference to the overall result, though. I have left out the random self selected category.

The prefered system of voting was First Past The Post.

Can we now have the votes from the Norwegian Jury, please?

So here goes. The 2011 Golden Pints Awards in full are as follows.

Best UK Draught (Cask/Keg)

Twenty seven different beers were nominated for this category and the top three in terms of votes cast are as follows.

1. Magic Rock High Wire  - 6 Votes
2. Hawkshead Windermere Pale - 3 Votes
3 = Magic Rock Dark Arts, Magic Rock Human Cannonball, Summer Wine Diablo, Grain Redwood - 2 Votes

Best UK Bottle / Canned Beer

Again, almost 30 different beers  were nominated with the Kernel polling strongly with 7 of their beers being nominated in this category. Fullers were next highest with three of their beers present on the final list. The top three were -

1. Kernel Imperial Brown Stout - 6 Votes
2. Buxton Axe Edge - 4 Votes
3. Roosters Baby Faced Assassin - 3 Votes.

Best Overseas Draught Beer

Beers from the U.S. were well represented in the nominations. Out of the 30 seperate beers mentioned, over 60 % were American. Mikkeller held it's own with 3 of their beers nominated. However, only three beers in this category were nominated more than once. These were;

1. Odell IPA - 6 Votes
2. Stone Brewing Arrogant Bastard. De Molen Hot and Spicy - 2 Votes

Best Overseas Bottle/Can

Again, loads of single entries with only three beers being nominated more than once. These were;

1. Orval - 3 Votes
2 = Stone Sublimely Self Righteous, Uinta Detour Double IPA - 2 Votes

Best Overall Beer

Loads of single entries again with Magic Rock, The Kernel and Summer Wine well represented. There was no outright winner in this category as six beers were tied for first place;

1. = Buxton Axe Edge, Kernel IPA 100 Centennial, Magic Rock Human Cannonball, Magic Rock High Wire, Orval, Hawkshead Windermere Pale - 2 Votes each

Best Pumpclip/Label

Sixteen nominations in this category but a clear winner emerged early on and was never going to be caught.

1. Magic Rock - 16 Votes
2. Uinta Crooked Line Detour DIPA - 2 Votes

Best UK Brewery

This was a very close run thing with 3 breweries in the reckoning right down to the wire. Overall, fourteen breweries were nominated but the final five were as follows;

1. The Kernel Brewery - 15 Votes
2 = Magic Rock - 8 Votes
3. Summer Wine - 7 Votes
4. Buxton - 4 Votes
5. = Marble, Hawkshead, Fullers - 2 Votes

Best Overseas Brewery

1. Stone Brewing - 8 Votes
2. De Molen, Mikkeller - 4 Votes
3. = Odell, Orval, 1516 of Vienna - 2 Votes

Pub Of The Year

This was a very close run category with pubs from across the country being represented. In the end it was shared between a Newcastle pub that won many admirers at the Toon Twissup in November and a new addition to London's beer scene that arrived this year and has clearly made a huge impression..

1. = The Free Trade Inn, Newcastle. The Craft Beer Co, London - 6 Votes
2. = The Southampton Arms, London. Mr Foley's, Leeds - 4 Votes
3. Port Street, Manchester, Euston Tap, London - 3 Votes

Beer Festival/Event of the Year

From Alloa to The Great American Beer festival, people were out and about enjoying sone great beery times. The top three events for beer were;

1. Great British Beer Festival - 7 Votes
2. = European Beer Bloggers Conference, Toon Twissup - 2 Votes

Best Supermarket for Beer

1. Waitrose - 10 Votes
2. Booths - 6 Votes
3. =Sainsbury, Marks and Spencer - 4 Votes

Independent Beer Retailer

The Leeds Blogeratti are greatly impressed by their local offie. As are a lot more others. It swept the board, this year, and blew every other beer shop right out of the water.

1. Beer Ritz - 15 Votes
2. Bottle, Canterbury - 4 Votes

Online Beer Retailer

Again, only one winner here;

1. My Brewery Tap - 19 Votes
2. Beermerchants - 4 Votes
3. BrewDog - 3 Votes


Best Beer Book


1. Oxford Companion to Beer - 5Votes
2. Beer Quarterly (Camra) - 4 Votes
3. = Melissa Cole's Let me tell you about beer,  Hopaganda - 3 Votes

Best Beer Blog/Website

1. Ghost Drinker - 10 Votes
2. Boak and Bailey - 6 Votes
3. Pencil and Spoon - 4 Votes
4.  Called To The Bar, The Good Stuff, Reluctant Scooper - 2 Votes

Twitter Beer Person

1. Simon Johnson - 16 Votes
2. Broadford Brewer - 6 Votes
3  Zak Avery - 3 Votes

Online Brewery Presence

Again a fairly close run thing between two new breweries that have used social media to fantastic benefit in raising their profile and getting greater public recognition of their brewery and beers.

1. Magic Rock - 11 Votes
2. Summer Wine - 8 Votes
3. Hardknott, BrewDog - 3 Votes

So, concludes the results of the Norwegian Jury.

Have a good year in beer and hope that 2012 is as good as the year just passed for well made, tasty and refreshing beer.

Cheers.

27 comments:

  1. Tusen Takk Oslo.

    Wow, great work pulling together the overall results so quickly (and thanks for the mention).

    I think this is a pretty fair and accurate summary of the impact people have had in 2011 and those that really deserve praise.

    I reckon 2012 is gonna be a blinder. Here's to it!

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  2. Nice one, fair play for doing all that work between you, good to see a summary of what people thought.

    Happy New Year!

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  3. Nice one!! Thanks for taking the time to compile all the results!!

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  4. You must have been very bored to get it done so fast!

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  5. I'd like to know the rest of the brewries in the 12 listed as best brewery...ones to watch for 2012..any interesting ones?

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  6. @Stevelamond

    Here you go steve

    Kernel 11 votes
    Magic Rock 7 votes
    Summer Wine 7 votes
    Buxton 3 votes
    Fullers 2 Votes
    Marble 2 Votes
    Hawkshead 2 votes
    Adnams 2 votes
    Thornbridge 1 vote
    Otley 1 Vote
    Red Willow 1 Vote
    Dark Star 1 Vote

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  7. @Stevelamond

    Add Grain Brewery to that list

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  8. @Steve Lamond

    add Fyne Ales to your list

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  9. Well this can't be entirely right. Both me and the Beer Nut voted for 1516 of Vienna as Overseas Brewery of the Year.

    Difficult job you took on mind you.

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  10. @Tandleman

    In process of updating.
    Just got the beernuts.
    Geeza Break ;-)

    it's organic!

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  11. @tandleman

    Updated.

    Now, what do you want doing with Windy Pale and NZPA?

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  12. Nice one! I was going to try and do this but I'm glad you got there first as it must've taken ages!

    Interesting list of overall winners!

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  13. rather than fill up comments I've posted my thoughts on brewery winners here http://beersiveknown.blogspot.com/2012/01/breweries-of-2011-as-voted-by-bloggers.html

    @beer monkey What's your twitter as I can never remember!

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  14. @steve

    its rhodeshannah on twitter

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  15. Thanks for doing this. Really interesting results, despite the small sample. (From a personal perspective, we'd like alternative vote next year to capitalise on our "honourable mentions" and "runners up" nominations....)

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  16. @Bailey

    As you say, despite the small sample, it's very interesting in terms of the impact that the new breweries have had in the 'hothouse' world of beer blogging and twittering. I was really surprised at the showing of Buxton. Their name appeared regularly across many categories.The big question is - Who are Grain Brewery?

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  17. That was my question too, turns out they're from Norfolk, obviously made a big impression on someone!

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  18. Nice (painstaking) work and as many have said interesting results. I wonder if there is any way of making this into a bigger thing to get a wider audience of non blogging folks? Perhaps too big a thing to take on, especially with a round up like this.. Cheers Phil

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  19. Brilliant, I think I only got 2 correct answers. Work to do...

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  20. Well done for putting these together. A great year for new breweries clearly, hopefully more of the same next year.

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  21. So then, do I get a Thornbridge-Dom-style dry-ice and fireworks reception when I claim my award?

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  22. Grain are from Alburgh in Norfolk and have a great pub, The Plough, in Norwich. Good bottled beers too. One of the county's many beery secrets.

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  23. A stirling job Messrs Monkey and Furzer!

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  24. Nice work, must have taken a while to compile! And yes, Grain are a fantastic Norfolk brewery producing some really great beers. They said that they have some exciting things planned for 2012..

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  25. Glad to see some votes for port street, love what that place adds to Manchester. Thabs for sharing all the details, looking forward to tracking down the beers I've not tried from the awards!

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