The Importance of Being Josef?

It was one of those things that you just stumble upon as you are looking something specific. In one of my vaguely regular bimbles around the Austrian National Library's newspaper archive looking for interesting tidbits about brewing and beer in the former Austro-Hungarian empire I decided to do a quick search in Der Böhmische Bierbrauer for Josef Groll...

As you are likely aware, Josef Groll was the first brewmaster at Bürgerliches Brauhaus Pilsen, the brewing company that today is generally known by the brand Pilsner Urquell. It was the beer that he brewed in 1842 that revolutionised the beer world and became the blueprint for countless imitations of varying degrees.

For such an august personality in the history of brewing, I was a little surprised to find just a single mention of him in the official organ of the Bohemian brewing industry between 1891 and 1918, using the search term "Josef Groll". Even allowing for just his surname only 5 results were returned, of which just 2 are definitively about the first brewer of Pilsner beer. While it is true that the archive doesn't have issues from 1874 to 1890, I was still surprised to see so few references to our friend from Vilshofen.

The earliest of this pair of references comes from 1892, in a fairly extensive article marking the 50th anniversary of the founding of the first batch of Pilsner Urquell being brewed. The actual company that would eventually create the largest revolution in brewing was established in 1839. The whole article is interesting as it makes no mention of several pieces of folklore that have become key to the popularly believed mythos of Pilsner Urquell. There is no mention of the citizens of Plzeň smashing up barrels of beer on the town hall steps, the reality was rather less prosaic and more economical...

Until 1839 the private and monastic brewers of Plzeň were making top fermented beers, using "primitive" equipment, but change was in the air in Western Bohemia, which butts up to Bavaria...lager was gaining ground. Not wanting to left behind in the popularity stakes, the leading citizens of Plzeň got together to build a brewery specifically for the brewing of bottom fermented beer, with building beginning in 1840.

At this point, it is worth skipping forward to the reference to Groll from 1897 as it relates directly to the building of the brewery. One of the things central to the mythos of Pilsner Urquell is that it was the "original" golden lager (I use inverted commas there because unless modern Vienna lager is significantly paler than in 1841, and that modern Pilsner Urquell is the same colour as in 1842, then the colour difference is not that drastic). To achieve a paler beer than had previously been seen in Plzeň, English style malting technology was installed. English malting methods were at least known in Germany in 1785 and may have been making in-roads into Bavarian brewing around the same time as Groll came to Bohemia. Andreas over at Daft Ejit has written more extensively about this.

While the use of English malting technology was essential to the creation of Pilsner Urquell, the second reference to Josef Groll in Der Böhmische Bierbrauer would suggest that they were not the first Bohemian brewery to adopt this method of malting barley. If I understand the text above correctly, Pilsner Urquell purchased their malting equipment, which we know to have used the English air drying method, from a brewery called Sauer in Haida, modern day Nový Bor. That claim by itself begs the question, what was being brewed by Sauer in Nový Bor? So far my further research hasn't brought any interesting nuggets to light about that, but I will keep on going. In relation to Josef Groll himself though, the text there basically says that he was "completely at the mercy of the kiln that had been installed", which points to the reality of those times that the reputation of a brewery was heavily reliant on the quality of the malt, which they malted themselves rather than sourcing from the multi-national maltsters supplying everyone these days.

Coming back to the article celebrating the 50th anniversary of Pilsner Urquell, the first brewday on October 5th 1842 produced approximately 36 hectolitres of beer, that's 30 US beer barrels for reference, which was presented to the world on St Martin's Day, November 11th, just 37 days apart. In the rest of the 1842-43 brewing season Groll produced 3,657 hectolitres/3116 barrels, and by the time he left the brewery in 1845, Pilsner Urquell was already brewing 5,510 hectolitres/4695 barrels. By the time the celebratory article was written, Pilsner Urquell was producing 462,540 hectolitres/394,161 barrels per year, under the watchful eye of Josef Binder, the fourth head brewer.

In those 50 years, Pilsner Urquell went from this

to this.

If you look very carefully at the latter picture, you can make out the 50th anniversary gate that is such an iconic landmark at the brewery.

Another fact about the actual beer being produced in Plzeň also caught my eye - that there were 2 types of beer being brewed at Pilsner Urquell, the famed 12° lager and an 11° schankbier, which may have at some point become a 10° version that was known within living memory.

The schankbier, the German equivalent of "výčepní", would be sent out to beer halls to be stored for 2 or 3 weeks before being ready to be drunk, while the lagerbier left the brewery ready to be tapped on arrival, and was mainly consumed during the summer months.

Such a lack of reference to Josef Groll in Der Böhmische Bierbrauer, by comparison the search term "Dreher" results in 162 references, "sedlmayer" 13, and "porter" 82, it makes me wonder if we overplay the role of the "founding" brewmaster in the subsequent success of a brewery? 

Even Groll's immediate successor, another Bavarian, Sebastian Baumgärtner, only lasted 5 years, and increased production to 10,865 hectolitres/9111 barrels by the end of his tenure. It was under the leadership of the third Bavarian to be headbrewer, Jacob Blöchl, that the brewery surged to be the powerhouse we understand it to be today. After 29 years production was up to 224,520 hectolitres/188,291 barrels.

All of this makes me wonder if we overstate the importance of Groll, and I keep coming back to the question, what was Sauer brewing up in Nový Bor with the air drying malting technology in use?

The Session - The Best Thing since 2018?

Oo-er missus, look at that..."The Session" logo makes a return to the top of a post on Fuggled, and to be honest it makes my heart glad to see the project being revived. The host for this relaunch is Alan McLeod over at A Good Beer Blog, and as with any relaunch the scope is naturally neat and tidy, with a pretty little bow on it...oh wait, no it's not, it's:

"What is the best thing to happen to good beer since 2018?"

There are so many avenues this question could be taken, he says channeling his inner James Burke from the Connections series of many moons ago. 

I could look at the big picture, though to be honest that picture is something of a grim one at the moment, with regular closings and well established breweries going to the wall in the face of economic headwinds. With such a curate's egg at the macro scale, perhaps the continued existence of Sierra Nevada, New Belgium, Allagash, and the other national scale craft breweries is the best thing.

However, I don't want to think about the macro, I want to ground my response in my day to day, so I am going to augment the question a little and make it:

"What is the best thing to happen to good beer for me since 2018?"

With that framing, the question becomes infinitely easier to consider and to answer, especially when I take a look at my annual review of beer in 2018 and compare it to 2019.

A very quick glance and the runners and riders for the the various categories I review each year show that of the 25 beers I name-checked only 9 were lagers, making up 36%. One year later though and that number jumps to 34 from 57 beers across the review posts, which is 59.6%. Now, admittedly in 2019 I went to Czechia and Germany, which could skew the numbers, so let's look at 2020 when nobody really went anywhere...Well, that was 37 lagers from a possible 51, or 72.5%. I would like to think you are getting the point by now.

When Mrs V and I first moved to Virginia back in 2009, finding good Central European lagers was difficult. There was no Port City Downright Pilsner, there was nobody making authentic Czech style dark lagers, as far as I am aware there was a single brewery that even considered decoction mashing...shout out to the still awesome Jason at Devils Backbone! Even a few years later, when we bought our house in 2012, readily available excellent lager was difficult, at a meetup in our house with Czech and Slovak friends, someone bought a six pack of Lagunitas' allegedly Czech pilsner to which an older gentleman who had fled Czechoslovakia (back when it still existed!) in 1969 commented, "this is simply not Czech". Well made beer it might well be, taste like a Czech pilsner it did not - haven't had it in many years so no idea what it is like these days.

Spring forward though to today, and just in the Charlottesville area I have several reliable breweries making excellent lagers, in particular I will highlight Selvedge, whose range of decocted and extensively lagered bottom fermented beers formed the vast majority of my drinking last year. While I make no secret of my preference for lagers made with traditional techniques, I am not daft enough to cut my nose off to spite my face. As such, breweries like Patch Brewing (very much my local), Decipher, SuperFly, and Rockfish all make cracking pale lagers that I am happy to drink regularly.

This then is the best thing to happen to good beer since 2018, good lager has become a staple of the brewing scene, and long may it continue. And on that note, I am excited for my first beer of 2025 tomorrow...it will be a lager, that is for sure, something from Bierkeller in Columbia SC as we are headed down that way for a family get together. Even getting good beer at all in Columbia was a challenge when we moved over here, that they have a brewery smashing great lagers borders on the miraculous.

Dej Bůh Štěstí!

Top Pubs - Let me Explain

Over the weekend, Ray and Jess of Boak and Bailey asked on their BlueSky account for a list of 3 pubs you must visit before you meet your demise. Thankfully they included the caveat that "You can do 10 if 3 is too hard". Yeah, 3 was way too hard, 10 was a challenge, but I trimmed my list down to just 10. Within the character limit of BlueSky, I couldn't elaborate much, but over here in Fuggled world, I can explain/justify my choices. There is no particular order in this list, so let's not get hung up on those kind of trivialities...

The Bon Accord - Glasgow

I have waxed lyrical about the Bon Accord several times, even though it has been about 9 years since I darkened the door of that most august of establishments. Not only is it a superb pub to get a pint or several of well kept real ale, it has a whisky list to die for, including 25 year old Talisker which was the perfect ending to the last trip Mrs V and I made to the Bon Accord in 2016. Oh and did I mention they do an all-day fried breakfast that would keep the Royal Navy running.

Beim Gloser - Windischeschenbach

If I have one regret from my life in central Europe it's that I never took the train from Prague to Schwandorf, and from thence to Windischeschenbach in order to delve into Zoigl world. I still have it on my bucket list of things to do eventually, maybe next time I get to Europe for a conference and have a couple of days spare to do a little personal side trip. Of the various Zoiglstuben in the remaining villages with a communal brewhouse, why do I want to visit Beim Gloser in particular - well it's simple really, it looks like the archetypal Wirtshaus as written about by Franz over on Tempest in a Tankard. Take a look at the pictures on their website and you'll see what I mean.

Brauerei Spezial, Bamberg

I spent a grand total of about 18 hours in Bamberg back in 2019, in between conferences, one in Prague and then another in Hannover. While drinking Urbock in Schlenkerla was a near religious experience, the sheer delight of several hours nursing beer after beer in one of the coziest pubs I have ever sat in was the highlight of my few short hours in the city. I love the picture above, taken sneakily for sure, simply because when Mrs V and I are in that stage of life, I would love us to be able to just sit with a superb beer and chill. And superb the beer undoubtedly was. I was not really expecting something to challenge for Schlenkerla's affections in this rauchbier loving soul, but Spezial did, and then some. Here, have another...

U Slovanské lipy, Prague

If you know me in the slightest, this one takes no explaining whatsoever. For the final couple of years that Mrs V and I spent in Prague, U Slovanské lipy was high on our list of regular haunts. It was less than 20 minutes from our apartment, it was the only pub in Prague, at the time, to have Kout na Šumavě's entire range of beers on tap, and after several pints the walk home was all down hill. I loved that place, nay, I love that place. Sure, it now has a rotating set of taps, and Kout na Šumavě are no more, but it still has the same, local, non-touristy, vibe that I always loved. Every time I have been back to the city in the last few years I organise a meet up with friends there largely because it is one of the models of perfection in my beery universe.

Pivovarský klub, Prague

Another place that means so much to me, so much so that I remember the exact date I first walked through its doors and went down the stairs into the cellar bar area. It was October 14th, 2005 when Mrs V walked down the same stairs and took the seat next to me at the table, we've been together ever since - with the 20th anniversary of that day being this year. If there was one place that we went to more often than U Slovanské lipy is was Pivovarský klub. We were such regulars that the staff knew what Mrs V would usually want to drink, Primátor English Pale Ale, and have it ready before she had her coat off. Pretty often I could just ask Klara, Karel, or Ambroz to just bring me something and it would be fantastic. It was here that I had my first rauchbier, Schlenkerla Märzen, it was here that Mrs V and I had our wedding reception in 2008, it was here most weekends were spent. It was our Cheers.

Hostomická nalévárna, Prague

If I were reasonably handy when it comes to these things, I feel like I could re-construct Hostomická nalévárna in one half of my garage, it is that small. But don't let outward appearances deceive you, while it may be small, it has everything that a proper boozer should: superb beer; efficient staff; well worn sturdy furniture; cracking Czech beer snacks. It's the kind of community boozer that is unassuming and down to earth, a place for the serious business of drinking world class lagers without the distractions of run clubs, yoga, or ill mannered parents letting their kids run wild (it is ALWAYS the parents that are the problem). Sorry Evan to sing your local's praises again...

The King's Arms, Oxford

Every trip I have taken to Oxford has been an absolute joy, whether going for a day when I was a student in Birmingham and sitting in cavernous dark pubs, whose names escape me right now, drinking mass produced smooth ales, if you were a drinker in the UK in the 90s you know the ones I mean or sitting around with your brother and friends while Mrs V attends an education conference, drinking pints of Young's Original. That last drinking session was at the King's Arms, just a short walk from the Radcliffe Camera, and in so many ways the epitome of a great English pub. There are many rooms in which you can find the perfect space for a pint and a feed, watch the world go by, and eavesdrop on conversations. Oh and from memory they kept their ales damned well, so that's good too.

The Westford Inn, North Uist

It seems weird to admit that I grew up in the Hebrides, including North Uist for a time, and I have never darkened the door of the Westford Inn. In my defense, I was still a Christian back then, as we say in the islands, I had the cúram, and so lived in fear of being outed as an apostate backslider because on the mainland I enjoyed a pint, or 2, or more likely 4 after a morning of studying theology and gradually realising you needed to try harder with this believing malarky. Eventually you get to a point of saying "sod it" and you give up, sorry Calvin no perseverance here. Any way, back to the Westford, next time I get home I will darken its door with abandon, and hopefully Mrs V will drink her fiddle/guitar/bodhrán/whatever freaking instrument she is learning this week, just in case there is an open session in flight at the time. Take a moment to look at their photo gallery and you'll get the appeal.

The Anderson, Fortrose

For a while after college and before moving to Prague, I lived with my brother and his wife in Fortrose, a small town on the Black Isle just north of Inverness - unrelated fact, the 11 mile walk from Fortrose into Inverness is a fantastic way to spend a morning, I jest not. While there, I worked in the local shop across from the chippy we initially lived above, and would wander into the public bar at the Anderson for a pint from time to time, oh and the occasional drop of something stronger. It was in the Anderson that I got used to the idea of putting a drop of water into my whisky, not ice, a drop of room temperature water from the ceramic jug on the bar. The Anderson was the first drinking den where I felt truly comfortable sitting at the bar rather than hiding my shy, introverted arse behind a wall or a curtain somewhere - might have had something to do with the cute barmaid, whose name I never learned, because well, shy and introverted me had struggled just to sit in full view of people. Thinking back on it, and this is some 25 years ago now, I was an awkward person, usually with my nose in a book, terrified of speaking to people, but a pint and a dram at the Anderson was probably the beginning of opening me up.

Karlsberger Pub, Svalbard

I have a thing for the North Atlantic world. When I took my family to Iceland a couple of years ago for our summer holiday, I was in my element. I love the ocean, the feel of the wind coming off the sea, the sounds of the ocean crashing against rocks, and the bare emptiness of the northern lands. Several of my friends and family on seeing pictures we posted on our socials commented on how relaxed, happy, and at home I looked. Yeah, the barren wilds of the north are a salve to my soul, and can you get more barren and wild than Svalbard? Watching the Craft Beer Channel's fantastic video about Svalbard, the Svalbard Bryggeri, and the Karlsberger Pub just made me want to visit, one day perhaps.

So there you go, a little delve into the pubs I chose and why I would love to visit them either for the first time or again. 

Where would you go?

2025 Homebrew Project

I mentioned in a recent post that I decided to make 2024 the year when I finally started making homebrew lagers properly. As such, I bought a chest freezer to be my fermentation and lagering chamber, I got to grips with rudimentary decoction mashing, and I learnt an awful lot about the importance of getting your beer off the trub if you don't want your lager to have a soapy character. As a result of all this, some of the best beers I have ever made were lagers I brewed last year, brews that looked like this:

Overall, last year I brewed 2 batches each of pale kellerbier and Vienna lager, and single batch each of a German pilsner and a 14° Světlý Speciál. Mostly I used a single decoction approach, where the decoction raises the temperature from a saccharification rest to mash out, and they were my favourite brewdays.

Now that lager brewing is a regular part of my homebrew world, I have decided that I want to make my main brewing project for this year to be starting to develop a house lager that will be brewed to the same recipe multiple times a year. I already have a house best bitter that I brew several times each year with a nailed down recipe, and now I want to do the same with a lager.

Where to start though. Being a "house" lager, it could be something a little stronger than I normally drink in the pub - after all, I will be drinking it at home, and if I ever get it in my head to drive home from home, well I need help then. At the same time, in 2023 I wrote a post about how the notion of a "house" beverage being the highest expression of those making it, so I wanted to make my perfect lager.

It would have been all too easy for me to just say that my perfect beer is a Czech style 10° pale lager, but that wouldn't be a fully honest reflection of my tastes. Yes I love Saaz, but I love Tettnang, Hallertauer Mittelfrüh, and Perle just as much. I also love styles like Vienna lager, Helles, and Dunkel, oh and I have made a personal commitment to use my local maltster's, Murphy & Rude, products as much as possible.

So when it come to recipe development, I worked backwards from a starting gravity of 11° and knowing I wanted between 25 and 30 IBUs to the iteration of the beer I brewed on Sunday:

• 88% Virginia Pils
• 12% Vienna
• 20.2 IBUs of Hallertauer Mittelfrüh at 60 minutes
• 7.5 IBUs of Hallertauer Mittelfrüh at 15 minutes
• 0.7 IBU of Hallertauer Mittelfrüh at 1 minute
• Saflager W-34/70

Beyond the 11° starting gravity, which I hit bang on, this should give me a beer which is 4.2% abv with a colour of 3.7 SRM, putting it in the straw end of the spectrum, though I am not sure how the brewing software accounts for the Maillard reactions of a decoction mash.

My plan is to brew variants of this beer on the first weekend of each quarter this year, and for 2025 at least to swap out the yeast strain for each brew before tinkering with grain and hops next year in order to really nail down my recipe. Hopefully I will be able to source some TUM-35 for one of those brewdays, but I am planning to at least try S-189 in one of the batches, and maybe the fabled Pilsner Urquell H strain as well.

Each batch will be lagered for 4 weeks before being slowly carbed for a couple of weeks ahead of tapping, which may mean I need another CO2 bottle and regulator to do that in the chest freezer.

My gut feeling is that this batch will be good, but my goal is to have a house lager that I can brew as consistently as I do with my house best bitter.

Fuggled Virginia Cider of the Year

Ah...cider, in many ways my first love booze. 

In common with many Brits, or at least the Brits that I grew up with and/or know from my travels, our first sip of booze was cider, proper cider that is, you know with alcohol. Fun fact, under Virginia law there is no such thing as "hard" cider, just fermented apple juice with a maximum abv of 10% abv without "chaptalization" - which is the process of adding sugar to bump up the booze. So...go stick your "hard cider" nonsense where the sun doesn't shine. In Virginia, there is cider and sweet cider (cough, cough, apple juice, cough, cough), nothing hard about it really. 

Anyway, sermon over - the collection plate will be around momentarily - this year my first book was published by Arcadia Publishing, "Virginia Cider: A Scrumptious History", there's a link in the right rail to the Amazon page where you can buy said book. As a result of the research I undertook for the book, cider has come roaring back into my drinking world - I have always had a few bottles floating around the house, and I make my own from time to time, but today the "wine fridge" that Mrs V bought a couple of years back has been colonised by an ever rotating selection of great ciders from around the Old Dominion.

In trying to decide how to break down my review of Virginia cider for 2024, I figured that the basic classifications I used in the book would be my template, with an addition category for pommeau and strong cider. As such, I'll have a short list of three for the following categories, as well as any honorable mentions:

• Single Varietal
• Apple Blend
• Flavoured
• Pommeau/Strong Cider

I will take the winners of the categories and decide on the Fuggled Virginia Cider of the Year, so let's get started...

Single Varietal

• Malus X Dolgo - Troddenvale, Warm Springs
• Wickson - Albemarle CiderWorks, North Garden
• Kismet - Ciders from Mars, Staunton

Honorable mentions: 21 Bent Mountain - Patois, Charlottesville; Virginia Hewes Crab - Buskey Cider, Richmond; Dabinett - Blue Bee Cider, Richmond; Northern Spy - Big Fish Cider, Monterey; GoldRush - Buskey Cider, Richmond; Harrison - Albemarle CiderWorks, Charlottesville; Virginia Hewes Crab - Albemarle CiderWorks, North Garden.

We have an inordinate number of fantastic single variety ciders being made here in Virginia, and to be honest I could almost have had a separate category for just Virginia Hewes Crab single varieties. As it is, in selecting my short list I chose three ciders that every time I go to, or speak with, the cideries in question I ask if they are available. However, of those three, only one inspired me to add a tree to my little backyard orchard, and so the Fuggled Single Varietal VA Cider of the year is the simply magnificent Malus X Dolgo from Troddenvale. Made with 100% Dolgo crab apples from the mountains of Highland County, this stunningly blush cider looks glorious in the glass, and when you inhale the aroma you get Alpine strawberries, cranberries, and very little foreshadowing of the taste explosion that is about to go off in your mouth, this is a riot of acid with a healthy dose of tannins to bring it back from being like sucking excessively sour lemons. I have a bottle in the fridge that at this point is going to have to wait for a charcuterie project to be finished before opening, maybe a duck prosciutto...

Apple Blend

• Cidermakers Choice #6: Dabinett and Harrison - Albemarle CiderWorks, North Garden
• Crabbottom Pippin - Big Fish Cider, Monterey
• Malice - Winchester Ciderworks, Winchester

Honorable mentions: Charred Ordinary - Blue Bee Cider, Richmond; Farmhouse Dry - Potters Craft Cider; Charlottesville; Wild Meadow - Big Fish Cider, Monterey; Cidermakers Table - Big Fish Cider, Monterey; Crab Apple Cider - Daring Cider Co, Stuart; Comeback Kid - Lost Boy Cider, Alexandria

I still remember the first time I tried the winning cider in the "apple blend" category (I need to think of a better term, but that can wait). Straight from the tank in the cidery where it was aging after primary fermentation, a beautiful crisp early spring day, the sun was shining, and I had a sense then that when it was released I would be enjoying it often. That day was a couple of years ago now, and whenever Mrs V and I make the trip to Albemarle CiderWorks I hope that the Cidermakers Choice #6 is still available, The marriage of the American Harrison and Dabinett from the West Country of England is just about perfection in so many ways, Harrison brings a quince like character with gentle tannins which more than stand up to the astringent black tea notes of the Dabinett. The blend is a complex, multi-layered joy to drink - I think I need to stock up.

Flavoured

• Whitetop Spruced Cider - Tumbling Creek Cider, Abingdon
• Stocking Stuffer - Sage Bird Ciderworks, Harrisonburg
• Sinners Cider - Winchester Ciderworks, Winchester

Honorable mentions: Wassail - Big Fish Cider, Monterey.

As I mentioned in my book, my taste in cider "doesn't so much veer to the dry side as it jackknifes like an 18 wheeler on I-81", and this fact makes ciders with added flavours something of a challenge for me. I have the same challenge in the beer drinking world, I like classic, you could say simple, drinks. That said, as I was researching the book I discovered many ciders with other fruit, vegetable, or even tree flavours that I really enjoyed. The other day I took my family, parents are visiting from the UK, on a little day trip to the Shenandoah Valley specifically to pop into some cideries. That Mrs V fell in love with the winning cider, made up my mind. Stocking Stuffer from Harrisonburg's awesome Sage Bird Ciderworks is simply Christmas in a glass. Flavoured with tangerines, oranges, juniper, and clove, the first time I stuck my nose in a glass of it I was transported, Anton Ego like, to being a kid making clove studded oranges as Christmas decorations, which my own kids had done just a few weeks previously. The oiliness of the citrus peels plays really nicely with the dryness of the base cider itself, so it doesn't become overly sweet, and the clove note is bang on point, present but not omnipresent as clove can so easily be. As long as Zach and co are making Stocking Stuffer, it will be part of our festive season menus.

Pommeau/Strong Cider

• Long Light - Sage Bird Ciderworks, Harrisonburg
• Firecracker - Blue Bee Cider, Richmond
• First Watch - Tumbling Creek Cider, Abingdon

Honorable mentions: Dark Night - Sage Bird Ciderworks, Harrisonburg.

Pommeau is on the verge of becoming something of an obsession for me, a blend of freshly pressed apple juice with apple brandy and then aged in oak barrels, it is a lovely night cap, aperitif, or even digestif, being about 18%. They are great on their own, but also blend with regular strength ciders nicely to make cider cocktails. The winner though of this category is not actually a pommeau, but rather a strong cider, although the cidermaker refers to it as a "sipping cider". When Mark the photographer and I drove down to Abingdon in the far south west of Virginia for a booking signing event at Tumbling Creek Cider's taproom, Justen brought over a bottle of First Watch for us to try, and explained the production process. Taking inspiration from how maple syrup is made, Tumbling Creek reduced the pressed apple juice before fermentation, resulting in a 15% abv "sipping" cider that is so focused and punchy in its flavours it's all too easy to polish off a whole bottle, especially sat by the fire. It is the luxuriant drink that demands comfortable surroundings.

How on earth do I make this decision then? Four fantastic ciders that I am always more than happy to drink, and I recommend you all go and hunt them down, whether that's online or getting to the cideries themselves for them, as I would with every cider and ciderworks mentioned in this post, we really are spoilt when it comes to cider in Virginia. But I will insist on deciding on an overall Fuggled Virginia Cider of the Year, a prize unencumbered by financial considerations, and so the inaugural winner is Cidermakers Choice #6: Dabinett and Harrison from Albemarle CiderWorks - a stunning cider from the cidery that I consider both the standard and flagbearer of real cider in Virginia, and even beyond.

Fuggled Beer of the Year

So 9, erm 8, has become 3, but as ever there can be only one Fuggled Beer of the Year, a prize entirely devoid of monetary value or media hype. Our illustrious finalists therefore are:

• Pale: Coat Czech 12° - Selvedge Brewing, Charlottesville, VA
• BOAB: Sommerbier - Bierkeller, Columbia, SC
• Dark: Pro Seam Please - Selvedge Brewing, Charlottesville, VA

Ah...the glories of Czech style pale lager, the second best thing to actual Czech pale lager. When a brewery makes an absolute banger of a Czech style pale lager, they are always going to appear in my end of year review. This especially true when said Czech style pale lager is either a 10° or 12° - side note, it has started to seriously annoy me when breweries bring out a "Czech" or "Bohemian" pilsner with a starting gravity of 14° or above. For as long as Bohemians have been drinking pale lager, it has predominantly been 12° or below. Any way, I could wax lyrical for days when it comes to Selvedge Brewing's stunning Coat Czech that came out in the middle of spring this year. Absolutely reeking with Saaz hops, with a rock solid bitterness that scrapes the palate clean with every mouthful - again a reminder of our friend Mr Swiveller's maxim that "it can't be tasted in a sip". I think from the day the final půllitr flowed out of the Lukr taps, I have been bugging Selvedge about when it would be re-brewed, and I know when it is back I will drink lots of it, again.

There is part of me that wishes Bierkeller were closer to me than a 6 hour drive, but then I also love the fact that on the few times a year that Mrs V and I get to Columbia to visit family I have a place to go where I feel resolutely at home. I commented on some social media outlet recently that despite being British, I really only became comfortable in drinking spaces when I moved to Prague in 1999. Prior to that, I had been a guilty drinker, being a practicing Christian who liked a pint meant sneaking off to the pub for a couple of jars of Guinness or Caffrey's whilst hoping nobody you knew saw you, especially given you were studying theology with a view to being a minister of some kind. In Prague nobody knew me, nobody cared, and so I could find who I wanted to be - hence becoming an indifferent agnostic who feels most comfortable in central European beer halls. Any way back to the beer. Every time I sit in the beer hall at Bierkeller, usually with a maß in hand, I feel at ease, knowing that Scott and co get it, they know and value Central European beer culture and see no need to mess with perfection. Long may it continue.

I remember a former girlfriend of mine in Czechia telling me that Czechs consider dark beer as being "woman's beer" because it is sweeter, and er reputedly enhances the size of the bosom. Whether or not there is any truth in that folklore I don't know, what I do know is that I love a good Czech style dark lager, assuming of course that Pro Seam Please is a Czech style dark lager...Wait, what? Is there heresy about? No, not really, just the inherent complexity that is central Europe and the inability of stylistas to accept that reality. As I mentioned in the previous post, Pro Seam Please was inspired by the Fabián Tmavý 14° from the imperious Pivovar Hostomice, just an hour or so from Prague, so obviously it's a Czech style dark lager, right? Right? Well, according to Hostomice's own website, their 14° tmavé is "Tmavé speciální pivo bavorského typu" - that's "special dark beer in the Bavarian style", aka Munich Dunkel. Whatever you want to call it, it's a great beer and in common with Coat Czech, I am looking forward to its return.

So there we have it, three beers that would stand up to any competition in the lager brewing heartlands of Europe, from a pair of breweries that I would love to see do some kind of collaboration brew together such is their shared love of all things Central European (hint, hint). As it is, I can only choose one brew to be the Fuggled Beer of the Year, an award, as mentioned, bereft of monetary value - well, other than the cash I have spend on said beers throughout the year. For the first time in Fuggled Review of the Year history, we have a brewery holding on to that crown, though with a different beer. Where last year it was Tabolcloth, this year the winner is Selvedge and Coat Czech 12° pale lager. There is a very good reason why I recently sang Josh and Selvedge's praises in an article by Evan Rail on Vinepair, they are simply knocking it out of the park and Coat Czech is a home run.

Fuggled Beers of the Year: Dark

Hello darkness my old friend, I've come to sup with you again...

Having run a spectrum gamut of orange and brown, wherever those edges subjectively blur, we are back on more solid ground, good old fashioned dark beers. Let's dive on in.

Virginia

• Porter - Port City Brewing, Alexandria
• Midnight Train Porter - Superfly Brewing, Charlottesville
• Pro Seam Please - Selvedge Brewing, Charlottesville

Honorable mentions: Tweed - Selvedge Brewing, Charlottesville; Fritz - Superfly Brewing, Charlottesville; Leatherbound Books and Rich Mahogany Porter - Three Notch'd Brewing, Charlottesville.

I have had so many good porters this year, but in all honesty, there is one dark beer that I simply cannot overlook for the Virginia dark beer of 2024. It only had a single flaw, and that was being released in the middle of our gloriously brutal Virginia summer. Otherwise, it was a 14° tmavé that transported me back to one of the finest drinking dens on the planet, which out of respect for a friend I shan't mention. It's not surprising then that Selvedge complete the clean sweet of pale, BOAB, and dark beers from Virginia for this year, taking the accolades with Pro Seam Please. Influenced by Hostomice's superb Fabián 14° tmavé, which inverts the usual proportions of Pilsner and Munich malts, making for a thicker, more unctuous beer that is perfect for sitting by an autumnal fire, while the rain gently pours outside, Pro Seam was just as satisfying under the awning on the back day at the end of a summer's day once the heat had finally cooled off. Mrs V nodded appreciatively when she tried it, and that is always a sign of good Czech style beer.

Rest of the USA

• Dunkel - Olde Mecklenburg Brewing, Charlotte, NC
• Tmavý - Notch Brewing, Salem, MA
• Rauchbier - Bierkeller, Columbia, SC

Back at Thanksgiving I needed to fill growlers, eight of them. Said growlers are the 1 litre kind that would usually just be traded for already filled ones, but seemingly the good folks of Columbia, South Carolina haven't got the hang of that eminently civilised practice yet. So as I waited for the staff at Bierkeller to wash out my existing growlers before refilling and sealing, I ordered a pint of Rauchbier and pulled up a seat at a table. Bierkeller had been open for all of 10 minutes at that point, and there was already a reasonable crowd of folks, all drinking beer (pet hate that I see all too often is groups in a brewpub with a single beer drinker and everyone else drinking some form of soda). Bierkeller's Rauchbier was one of the first beers I tried from Scott Burgess and co several years ago when they were brewing out of the defunct Swamp Cabbage Brewing - we had been talking about German beer and he graciously let me try some of his then soon to be release rauchbier from the lagering tank. Then as this year, it reminded me of a slightly darker version of the Spezial rauchbier in Bamberg, and there really is no higher praise than that, so I had a couple more while I waited as Bierkeller was by now pretty busy, a sight that's cheered my soul no end.

Rest of the World

Ummmm...well this is a touch embarrassing. Going through my records it seems I haven't drunk a single dark beer from outside the US this year that left a lasting impression. Sure I've had several pints of Guinness to varying standards, and maybe even an O'Hara's Stout, though I am not entirely sure. Rather than try to cobble together a short list for the rest of the world, I think I'll just resolve to do better next year, and hopefully get abroad again soon. A trip to Europe would be very welcome...

So with just a pair of excellent dark beers to choose from, the decision doesn't really get much easier, especially given both beers are apt to give me Anton Ego moments back to some of the best drinking experiences ever. Though as the immortals from Zeist would say, there can be only one, and that would be Pro Seam Please from Selvedge Brewing, I kind of wish I had a couple of crowlers in the fridge to tuck into before Hogmanay.