USA vs the Rest of the World Part 1

The RateBeer best awards http://www.ratebeer.com/RateBeerBest/? have always made me think.

All awards hove there Pro and Cons and im a big fan of RateBeer but the Dominance of US beer and breweries in the RateBeers best and top 50. Along side this some surprising UK entries that seem to have a much higher placing than me or the beer people i know would expect but on closer examination have a large distribution in the US.  All this has regularly made me think that maybe US members rate beers higher then Non US members.

Now without Access to the Database where im sure some large scale analysis could be done, im going to try looking at several beers  that will hopefully have a reasonable number of ratings from both US and Non US members.

So for Part 1, I have taken
Three Floyds Dark Lord Russian Imperial Stout vs Westvleteren 12 (XII)

I looked at distribution of the Top 20 and Bottom 20 raters of each beer. (excluding as is ratebeers way any with less than 10 rates)

So for
Darklord all 20 top raters were from the US but only 10 of the Bottom Raters were
Where as for
Westvletern 13 of the top raters were from NON US countries but 11 of the bottom were also NON US raters

Now Its a  small sample of only 2 beers so id be fairly certain its statistically insignificant, but i hope to look at other beers in this way and others and see if a pattern emerges

Sunshine on Corstorphine

Way back 4 Years ago i got solar panels installed by EcoSunPower, which you can read more about here and i talked about the FITS scheme here and though the payments have dropped so has the cost of installing solar panels , making it still a worthwhile investment in my eyes.

But today im going to look back at my first FOUR years

What we see here is a month by month reading of what solar units i received vs the sight i used to decide on the viability of installing the panels. As can clearly be seen my use of the site consistently underestimated how much solar units i would produce. Only one in the 4 years did i produce less than the prediction.

From this days we can see the odd numbered years do better . Fingers crossed for this year then :-) That the sunniest month was July this year and the least sunniest was December 2011 and that February is 50 to 100% percent more sunny than January so things are looking up as we head into February.

Going in Blind

The Bow Bar in Edinburgh had a Blind Dark Beer Festival where they had 26 different Stouts on across several weeks across their Cask and Keg line.  You tried a beer and gave a mark out of 10 for that beer and submitted it to be averaged with all other score.

The results are seen below.

But what interested me was how i scored blind (using Ratebeers system) against  my existing RateBeer Score.

So in Winning Order I tried

22 - Pilot Mochaccino:  4.3 against existing 4.2
17 - Cromarty Brewed Awakening 3.9 against existing 3.8
24 - Fyne Sublime 3.9 against existing 4.0
 5  - Loch Lomond Silke 3.6 against existing 4.0
 8 - Brewdog Brixton Porter 3.1 against existing 3.5
 4 - Orkney Dark Island 2.6 against existing 3.8
10 - William Bros Midnight Sun 4.1 against existing 4.2
 2 - Guinness 3.0 against existing 2.7

Im please to see that with the exception of Dark Island no score was Way off and that half of them were within 0.1 of original Score.
More interestingly the one score that was way off was a Keg version against a beer i would normally have in Cask.

I was also interested to see that despite my worry that my general feelings towards  Brewdog in this one case at least hasnt effected how i score their beer, and in fact i scored it lower blind that my existing score.

and who would have thought Guinness is better than i thought.

Golden (half) Pints 2014

In a break with the Traditional Golden Pints, Im going to run down my Top 15 beers of the Year and then look at what i says about me.

In Date Order.

Hawkshead Imperial Stout (Oak Aged) 
Well this one just sneaked into the list as it was the tail end of 2013(but after any 2103 writings so would be unfair to exclude) Hawkshead would certainly make my top 5 UK breweries mostly for the consistent quality and depth of there core range. But this one falls firmly into my Oh i love it category. Its Big (8.3%) Black, and on Cask. What more could a boy want.

DuClaw Divine Retribution No. 2
A bottle i sadly have no recollection of, and this is the main reason i started using ratebeer, to keep track of what i thought of beer (and again the main reason i do not rate to style as im interested in what I like best) but again from my notes i can see why i liked this, it was a fruity big stout.

Arizona Wilderness American Presidential Stout
Unlike the DeClaw this one has left a clear impression. It was the best of the Copenhagen beer Celebration, and again a Big Black beer. The biggest disappointment of the festival  was by the time i tried to get more they had nothing left.

Prairie Artisan Ales Bomb!
Another one from CBC and another Big Black stout, we very quickly see an unexpected pattern forming. This was one of a set with a special Chocolate edition available at the festival, and though the chocolate one was nice it was a clear winner for the Core beer, This is the First of the Beers i was lucky enough to revisit and it just seemed even better when i had it in bottle a few months later

Lervig Once You Go Black
Another CBC and the biggest surprise of the festival. While ive had several good beers from Lervig i just never expected to be as blown away as i was by this one, This was my 2nd choice of CBC and it was just a hairsbreadth away from the Presidential, and no surprises for spotting yet another big black beer.


Magic Rock Bearded Lady Pedro Ximénez BA
and Finally another CBC beer this time returning home to the UK with Magic rocks Bearded Lady. Now ive always been partial to a Bearded lady of two, and im a big fan of Pedro Ximenez so it was of no surprise that i liked this one as much as i did, it being my 3rd pick of CBC

Brøggeren Birkestout

And it turned out i couldn't escape  Copenhagen without picking up another top beer. Bringing the total for 1 weekend to a third of my top 15. This was a random find in one of CPHs many bars (Fermentoren) and a beer that was so good, that we returned to have another before heading for our plane and as such came within a hairs breadth of missing my plane. The only time i've nearly missed a flight. But it was well worth it.

Buxton Double Axe 
And at last a beer that isnt Black, however it is Big and its probably my favourite Double IPA ever. I had this first on Keg, and it was great but not stunning, but as well as making a great IPA it showed signs of actually aging into a great barley wine so when i went to buy some bottle i made sure to pick up a few extras for deliberate aging. But then a spanner in the works, The beer was even better in bottle that it had been on keg. With the side effect that i drunk most of them, leaving me less aging than intended.

Siren / De Molen Empress Stout 
Back to big and Black and my favourite of the Rainbow series, well not at first, again we have an improvment on revisit. At first i had on keg along side all the other rainbow series, but at IMBC it was available on Cask and for me and my personal preferences it was substantially lifted(it also didnt hurt that it was the best value beer of the year being only £3 a pint)

Siren / Evil Twin Bourbon Barrel Even More Jesus Coffee
Even More Jesus always scores well from me, but this was my favorite so far, i do like coffee in my beer, but am often not a fan of bourbon aging, but Ryan really seems to have a knack for these things and this beer just hit all the right amounts of everything for me.

De Molen Fruit IPA Mango Habanero 
And onto the another non Stout , this was an interesting one as it was a blend of two beers available at the De Molen Festival available both individually and as the blend and this one was a clear example of the sum being greater than its constituent part, both were decent enough. But the Spice was tempered by the sweetness of the mango in the blend making this the beer of the festival for me.

New Glarus Strawberry Rhubarb
Were heading towards closing down one of my tastings, whe from a bag this is pulled out. Instantly everyone sits up as the Raspberry tary and Cherry Red from New Glarus are cracking beers, this one didnt sound quite as interesting to me, but boy was a wrong. Its a real shame i had to share this with others, but as it wasnt my bottle in the first place im just glad i got to try it.

Buxton Berry Sake Bastard
Buxon have really been producing a lot of new beers this year and so many of them are shining, and this is one of the brightest, i wasnt a massive fan of the original version of this but the barrell aged version , the big fruit and a light funky back bone just tingled my tastebuds in all the right places

Magic Rock Dark Arts Barrel Aged With Raspberries 
and so we return to the darks all be it the not quite so big darks, with a Barrel and raspberry aged Dark arts, Ive always been partial to raspberries so im always interested to find a good beer thats been raspberried up and this one hit the mark, its got all the characteristics of the original, but with a massive raspberry hit. Whats not to like.

Highland Barrel Aged Orkney Porter (Isle of Arran)
and here we finish off with the last of my top 15, and it nicely bookends the list as when asked for my Favourite UK brewery the first two names out of my mouth are usually Highland and Hawkshead. So its fitting that i start and finish the list with these breweries. Again when asked, i will happily tell anyone who asked that i think the Best Scottish beer in regular production is the standard Orkney Porter, great in Bottle but Even better in cask. So it was with some delight (given how rarely we see the base beer in cask) that i was able to try this in cask which lived up to everything i could have hoped for.


So theres my Top 15 for the year,  looking as formats we see
7 Keg
2 Bottle
1 Cask
2 Bottle and Cask
2 Bottle and Keg
1 Cask and Keg

From the scoring of those in multiple formats,(and its no surprise) I clearly prefer Cask > Bottle >Keg

Looking at Locations we have
3 CBC
1 CBC and Home
1 CBC and De Molen
3 Home
2 Hanging Bat
2 Hanging Bat and Home
1 Hanging Bat and IMBC
1 Fermentorem
1 De Molen

From which i can only conclude that it takes the Hanging bat a whole year to replicate CBC (they really should try harder) and that even through hard work and dedication i still get much more good beer out and about than in bottle at home.


and Finally looking at Styles
11 are Stouts in one format or another
2 are Double Ipas
2 are Fruit beers

There really no surprise there anyone that knows me knows that i always have been a stout fan, and i dont see that changing any time soon,  but when the right beer comes along i can be tempted from the Dark Side.


and now onto the Standard list

1. Best UK Cask Beer – From Above that would have to be The Siren Empress but the Highland BA Porter was just behind.

2. Best UK Keg Beer – again taken from above Buxton Berry Saki B*astard.

3. Best UK Bottled beer – in whats fast becoming a repeat of the above, the Buxton Double Axe.

- Best UK Canned Beer – a tricky one aa none jump to mind but it would almost certainly be something by Beaver Town

4. Best Overseas Draught – Arizona Wilderness Presidential Stout

5. Best Overseas Bottled beer – New Glarus Strawberry Rhubarb

- or Canned Beer – Bud Chelada Picante

6. Best collaboration brew – again have to the Empress but outside of that the Even More Jesus Coffee making it a Collab Double for Siren

7. Best Overall Beer – Take your pick from the Above. Its far to close to call, but the Cask Lover in me Screams the Empress again.

8. Best Branding, Pumpclip or Label – Interestingly Most of my favourite beers have been from the Bat, or Festivals where there is very little Branding.

9. Best UK Brewery – See above where I say Hawkshead, Highland but lets add Siren  and MagicRock to the Mix.

10. Best Overseas Brewery – Im going to stick with De Molen, i like there beers, there festival and Meno so its a triple win for them

11. Best New Brewery Opening 2014 – 

12. Pub/Bar of the Year – If i dont say the Bat i may be Barred, so The Hanging Bat

13. Best New Pub/Bar Opening 2014 – Im going to go all Mystic Meg on you and say SpitFire

14. Best beer and food pairing –  Nothing beats those deep fried Pickles and any beer in Small Bar Bristol

15. Beer Festival of the Year – Im going to go against my beer Grain here and say Borefts at De Molen, a festival is about way more than just its beer, and De Molen seem to get everything right.

16. Supermarket of the Year – Waitrose as it’s the only one I buy beer from. ( I cut an pasted the Hanging bat one and edited it but im leaving this alone)

17. Independent Retailer of the Year – I’ve bought more beer from Beer Hive than anyone else this year.(and this one)

18. Online Retailer of the Year – Eeberia, is the only one ive used and twice Buxton had enough beers i wanted to justify an order.

19. Best Beer Book or Magazine – Dont read any

20. Best Beer Blog or Website – Given i only regularly read TheBeerCast so its well placed for 2nd place

21. Best Beer App – Twitter

22. Simon Johnson Award for Best Beer Twitterer – @whatjoewrote he probably makes me smile in the most simon like manner.

23. Best Brewery Website/Social media – Siren, no one quite insults me the way Ryan does. (though many seem to try)

Rate the Rater

Off the back of another interesting post from @BoakandBailey here

I got thinking, just what do brewers think of my Rates.

I know many are flawed, I know many are done from small samples. I  also know that I go back to beers I love time and time again and rerate. But most of all i know I really enjoy my beer life.

Every new beer is an adventure, a mystery waiting to be unfurled. Now there are a few brewers that hold no mystery any more. I can pretty much predict what its going to be like and on the whole I avoid them, unless they are placed in front of me.  But even some brewers that I've long found very middle of the road can come out an produce a beer that certainly make my top beer of the month, if not year.


So here the chance for brewers to rate my reviews.

I suspect some of my friends may be tempted to send comments in  and that cool. But I am seriously interested in what brewers actually think of MY  reviews. So anyone can comment, but please state if your a brewer. So i can see if there are any difference in opinions there.

To keep it all nice and anonymous goto https://www.guerrillamail.com/compose choose a unique non persistant email address and email your comments to cgarviereg@yahoo.co.uk

I will follow up with a post if i get enough feed back. So if you dont want quoted (not that i will know who you are) but if youd still rather not be quoted just say so in the email.


Note Gorilla mail needs no setup. It creates instantly a temporary account(lasts 2hours)
Or leave anonymous comments

Beer after Independence

A comment was made in passing on my facebook profile suggesting that Independence could have a vastly negative impact on the Future of the Scottish Beer market. So it got me thinking, and raised many questions that I'm hoping more enlightened people than me might have an answer/opinion on.


How do cross border sales work. As i understand it Alcohol Duty is payable in the destination country. So this leads to several sub questions.

1. Would Independence make all cross border sales more likely to have to go through  a wholesaler (as paperwork for direct selling to a pub too much hassle) Leading to less choice in Scottish pubs?
2. Would it be easier for Brewers (especially the better ones) to sell mostly to England  thus avoiding having to pay duty up front.
3. Would Wholesales want to deal with the extra hassle of Cross-border shipments.

 This Document was referenced (from 2011) which suggested that the current Scottish Government would like to raise Beer duty in line with Whisky. This would create imbalance between Scotland and England Duty rates. If i have calculated correctly raising duty to Spirit levels, would see Duty on a 4.1% pint from 43p to 58p  (or a bit over £10 per cask) , given the questions above,

1. Would an increase in Scottish Duty make Scottish Brewers more likely to sell to England. 
2. Would any increase in Duty lead to Brewery Closures.

Now it may be that I've totally misunderstood how the market works, so welcome all comments on the issue, or even further question.

Id especially be interested in Brewers who  think Independence will make life harder or easier.

Personally, if i have understood it right we could well see the loss of direct to pubs sales, but dont think we will see more Scottish Brewers selling exclusively or even mostly to England unless the Tax rate (which given the date of article i dont put much credence in)  becomes vastly different.

My Independence fears

First off, I’m not going to make any bones about it. I’m for the Union, I was born in UK, all be it in the Scottish part. I’ve lived in the UK all my life, I grew up immersed in UK culture: watching British TV, listening to British music, but with all the access I needed to Scottish culture. In the past, could Scotland have been better represented across all media? – absolutely - but my kids are growing up in different cultural environment. All told I’m British and happy with that.

Looking back, every time (or at least all that I can remember) in every UK general election I got the MP I voted for, so it could be argued that I’ve been more than fairly represented in the Government. Yes, I haven’t always had the Government I hoped for, (nor, indeed, have some of those I’ve voted for lived up to my hopes and ideals) but Scottish Government hasn’t always been the one i wanted either(nor lived up to my hopes and ideals). 

So I’m not in favour of Independence, but you know what, I could live with it, if it was the overwhelming view of the Scottish population. However I don’t believe there is that view and here’s my fear. In September we go to the polls, and if we vote for Independence it’s pretty much a one way ticket, there no second vote in five years (like a general election). I believe this is a crucial decision, and one we should be absolutely sure of. If even 1 vote more than 50% of those voting vote yes, we’re going independent. We could end up with a situation where the majority of the population don’t want independence but the pro yes vote is better mobilised and gain that 50%+1 vote required. My worry is the real danger that, just for polling day, enough people may be persuaded to vote yes, even though they are not fully convinced.

The polls have always shown that there is no real appetite for independence in Scotland. The BBC recently carried an article (here) Showing the opinion polls of recent months where those in favour of Independence has sat at about 35% More interesting are the Historical polls (here and here) that clearly show that on the whole support for Independence has rarely ever risen above 50% There is just no overwhelming appetite for Independence in Scotland. If that ever changes, that there is consistent overall support for independence, then even if it’s not my choice I’m happy to accept it. But we should not be making an irreversible choice unless were absolutely sure it’s the right choice.

To me this split is like a divorce and I don’t believe any sane person decides to get a divorce if they’re only half sure it’s the right thing to do.

 If your one of the 30-40% that have always been for independence go out and vote for it, but for any of you not sure, I urge you to think about this carefully. We don’t get to back away from it if it doesn’t turn out the way we wanted or expected but If appetite grows for independence then the chance will come again to vote yes.