"a shaft of gold when all around is dark" :-)
To start with let me first say i would rather drink a crap beer with good people
than a good beer with idiots.
I subscribe fully to the Strummer line "Without people you're nothin"
Anyone stopped reading , yes okay lets ignore them and carry on.
Best Overall Beer
Fyne Ales Superior IPA
I have drank more of Fyne Ales product than any other producer this year.
They innovate with flavours and styles.
They experiment with product lines and customer engagement
They make damn good beer
Best Pumpclip or Label
Good innovative design will always triumph over short term stylings and unfunny puns and jokes
Best UK Brewery
Fyne Ales
( Apparently making a public statement about this causes problems
but we all have "one persons opinion" )
Simply had more of their beer than any other and would never hesitate
to try anything from them.
Pub/Bar of the Year
The Laurieston
Check out the rest of this blog;i have been in around 200 pubs/bars in Glasgow over the last 2 years . From the labels at the bottom you can see pictures from about 180 of them so i will claim some level of practical recent knowledge here.
It is a never ending delight to go here. To those who only go and drink the fantastically kept beer and have not introduced themselves to the regulars you have missed a great part of this bar.
Regarding the beer, i go to some of Glasgows other good beer bars and for supposedly the same pint something always tastes off with them , it may be bias but i always prefer the beer poured here.
Beer Festival of the Year
They just take away from local year round bars income, this is not supporting pubs,
The Edinburgh Independents Beer Festival of 2012 is where these should be heading.
Get Beers in pubs and get people going into places they do not normally go.
Best Beer Blog or Website
Walking And Crawling ( http://walkingandcrawling.blogspot.co.uk/ ). so far ahead of any writing in showing the enjoyment in drinking that most others pale into self annointed preaching. Not the too usual crappy cell phone picture of a indeterminitely coloured pint or the equally uninformative spew from a 2nd rate thesaurus
Best Beer Twitterer
if @willmill82 had slightly less Millwall :-) it would be him
Best Online Brewery Presence
Brewdog.
They are in the business of selling beer.
They open bars and market themselves.
They tell people about it and get noticed.
Mair power tae them
Food and Beer Pairing of the Year
Black Isle Organic Blonde Lager and any Burger at (images) Nice N Sleazy
( Between the food here and the stall for Smoak set up in the
Variety Bar it is a great little area for food )
In 2013 I’d most like to...
Expose the hypocrisy of Glasgows online presences;
If you use multiple twitter or blog accounts and retweet/self cross promote/do not mention that items were supplied for promotional reasons where i know about it i will publically expose them this year rather than the DM's and private emails i have sent before.
Calling out inconsistencies in statements;
Calling a place and customers by names hoping they wont find out should be exposed. Glasgow has too many people with an online presence that make statements that they would never say in the location. It is disgraceful to make disrespectful claims about places you then go and claim ignorance or misinterpretation of those statements.
All of these online statements are remembered and accessible.
To see a wider variety of voices commenting on the experience of drinking rather than just a mechanical listing and description of the drink being tried , everyone has stories to tell. If you have read this far you should be interested in getting your own viewpoint out. There are a lot of local people i would like to hear more from and a lot of them write nothing just now.
Maintain respect for the places that i, and others, go to and for the work that others have done to let me be there. Respect the people that go regularly and only impact them in a good way. Do not, as i see or hear others do too often, take advantage of peoples good manners and view it as a sign of weakness. I was taught when learning to drive if you cause anyone else to change direction,or speed, it is your fault, making someone else change their routine just because of your choices does not make your actions correct.
And as a final statement of support for the Pubs, Shops , Brewers and all other members of the supply chain that allows me to enjoy a great drink while having to put up with the hubris of so many; ( i know it says "man" but read as appropriate )
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. "
http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/trsorbonnespeech.html
Have fun in 2013
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