Fuggled Virginia Cider of the Year

Turning my attention away from beer for a moment to finish up my booze review of 2025, we come to cider. Specifically, Virginia cider since that is the mainstay of my cider drinking world, and it would be disingenuous of me to have categories for outside of the Commonwealth.

Looking back over my notes for the year, I have also decided to cut back on the number of categories from last year. Out go "Flavoured" ciders and "Pommeau/Strong Cider", not because I haven't had any of those categories, but because I have really only had one of each. As nice as they were, and in the case of the Sage Bird Long Light superb, again it feels a little damning with faint praise to give them their own categories. So we have just the two:

• single varietal
• blended (including co-ferments)

Let's dive in...

Single Varietal

• Malus X Dolgo - Troddenvale, Warm Springs
• Virginia Hewes Crab - Big Fish Cider, Monterey
• GoldRush - Buskey Hard Cider, Richmond

Honorable mentions: Hazy Lady (Winesap) - Ciders from Mars, Staunton; Kingston Black - Sage Bird Ciderworks, Harrisonburg; Royal Pippin (Albemarle Pippin) - Albemarle Ciderworks, North Garden.

I mentioned last year that I could quite easily have had a category for single varietals of Virginia Hewes Crab ciders, but I wrote about that mass tasting for Cider Review recently. The highlight of that tasting, which features 6 examples from around Virginia is also the winner of the single varietal category, the one from Big Fish Cider over the mountains in Highland County. I described the cider as being "a pleasing blend of limes and lemons, set off by a green apple flavour that brings even more brightness" and that it is one "of life's most happy accidents" since the founder of Big Fish had intended to use it in blends, but it was too good not to shine alone. Every trip to Big Fish results in at least half a case of bottles clinking their way over switchbacks to Louisa County, and always, always, always their Virginia Hewes Crab is at least 2 of the 6. A cracking cider from one of my favourite cideries in the state.

Blends/Co-ferments

• House Cider - Troddenvale, Warm Springs
• Crab Apple Blend - Daring Cider, Stuart
• Maven - Ciders from Mars, Staunton

Honorable mentions: Foraged Cider - Troddenvale, Warm Springs; Cidermakers Choice #6 (Harrison and Dabinett) - Albemarle CiderWorks, North Garden; Crabbottom Pippin - Big Fish Cider, Monterey.

Back in November, I was privileged to be asked to speak on an author panel at the inaugural Cider Festival at the Frontier Culture Museum in Staunton - one of my favourite little cities in the entire world, and a wonderful open air museum too. At the festival there were several of the best cideries in Virginia pouring their wares for visitors. It was a wonderfully civilised way to spend an afternoon. My blended cider of the year was available at the festival, and I made a point to stock up on a few bottles, that may have lasted little more than a weekend. Jocelyn Kuzelka is a cider maker of supreme skill, and it is her Crab Apple Blend that takes the accolades. It is a pretty simple blend, being 75% Virginia Hewes Crab and 25% Ruby Red Crab Apple - a variety that is only found in a single orchard. The blend sings with red fruit notes and a lovely floral character that makes me think of meadows in spring, and there is a delicate sweetness in the background that just keeps it from being too bone shatteringly dry (not that that is a bad thing in my world though).

A pair of quite simply glorious ciders to select a single winner from, and in common with my annual beery review, this is an "award" that comes with no financial gain, or even a certificate to print off and put up on the wall. Both ciders grace my wine/cider fridge regularly, and so it really is difficult to separate them, but given that Big Fish's Virginia Hewes Crab won out in my big summer tasting of single varietals, I am going to given them the plaudits. It is an absolute must buy whenever I head over to Highland County - a gorgeous drive in and of itself - as well as something I will pick up in local bottle shops, and there are few better ways to spend a sunny afternoon, regardless of season, than on the back deck with a bottle or two of Big Fish's finest.

Fuggled Beer of the Year

Ok then, the choices have been made, the runners and riders whittled down to just three beers, a pale, a BOAB, and a dark, and final decision must be taken to crown the 2025 Fuggled Beer of the Year. As in years past, and most certainly in years yet to come, the present awarding of the title comes with little fanfare, and a miserly pot of coin - i.e. no coin whatsoever. It does come, however, with the knowledge that this little part of the internet appreciates your beer and will happily drink more of it in the future.

Our finalists then are:

• Pale: Spoolboy 10° -  Selvedge Brewing, Charlottesville, VA
• BOAB: Altbier - Bierkeller Brewing, Columbia, SC
• Dark: Aecht Schlenkerla Erle - Heller-Bräu Trum, Bamberg, DE

I am sure this comes as no surprise to anyone, but since Spoolboy has been available on tap at Selvedge, it has basically become my go-to beer. Pretty much whenever I walk in, the folks behind the bar know what my, and Mrs V's, first beer of the visit will be, and so fresh pints of Spoolboy appear without really having to be asked for. In my world, this is the sign of superb service from people who get to know their regular customers. Do I drink Spoolboy to the exclusion of all else on tap at Selvedge at the moment? Do I heck, after all they also have a fantastic 12° lager, a Munich helles, a cracking little schankbier, a rauchbier, an Italian pilsner, an ordinary bitter, an oatmeal stout....you get the point. However, Spoolboy is our point of reference, the one we come back to time after time. Desítka - the Czech name for 10° lagers - holds a special place in my heart simply because it is the go-to type of beer back in Czechia, and whenever I get back there, it is predominantly desítky that I drink. Were Spoolboy available in any of the hospody and pivnice that I frequent then I would be drinking it there too.

Well made altbier is as rare as hens' teeth in my experience. When I say "well-made" I mean using the appropriate malts to get its characteristic colour and bready sweetness. You know, German malts. Sadly too many examples of the style are made with crystal malts and end up being slick and overly sweet. Given their commitment to authenticity in all their beers, Bierkeller's lovely Altbier avoids all those pitfalls, and is suitably bitter to boot. Absolutely laden with toasty warmth and a slight unsweetened cocoa edge in the background, coupled with a delightfully soft carbonation, that rounded out the mouthfeel, this was a beer that screamed out for a wood paneled kneipe rather than a sun-drenched balcony, but fit the moment perfectly anyway. Classic beer styles made properly never go awry in my world, and hopefully we'll see more of this whenever I next get to Bierkeller.

I have a confession to make, and here I may be in a minority of 1, I tend to be a little wary of buying Schlenkerla brews that are made with woods other than the classic beechwood. An example, while I think the Eiche Doppelbock is a very respectable beer, and I usually have a bottle or two in the cellar, I let them sit there for at least a year, so that the oakiness can dampen down a tad. So it was when I opened my first bottle of Erle, I was fully expecting to put the other three in the cellar until, well round about now as it happens. The other three swiftly joined the first bottle in an afternoon session of rauchschwarzbier, and it was a wonderful way to see out the throes of winter, with spring finally making an appearance. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I think there is still some of this floating around the bottle shops of central Virginia, so I better go get me some for the weeks ahead...

As in years past, these are three wonderful beers and making the decision to choose just one as the Fuggled Beer of the Year is really difficult. Fun fact, I have been writing reviews of the year now since 2010, with a break in 2017, and I think it shows just how far we have come in the US that properly made lagers now form the majority of my picks. Yes it is true that cold fermented beers are just so much more my thing than the IPAs, pastry stouts, and fruited sours of the craft beer world, but when I reflect back to the challenges of finding a halfway decent Czech or German style lager back in 2009, the standard has improved exponentially. One thing though that had never happened in the past was a brewery picking up Beer of the Year twice in a row, well that two in a row is becoming a three in a row, as Selvedge Brewing take the plaudits again, so congratulations to Josh and co for making beers like Spoolboy, they make this lagerboy's life all the more delightful.

Fuggled Beers of the Year: Dark

Given the inherent subjectivity of the BOAB category, it is always good to be back on more solid ground with dark beers, and I do love a good dark beer. That said, most of the dark beers I have drunk this year have been my own. In the spring I brewed my annual dry stout, imaginatively monikered "Virginia Stout", for Mrs V's fiddle teacher, who hosts a St Patrick's Day party every year, and it is just de rigueur to have a session stout at such events. In the summer I brewed a dark mild, again for a party, this time a birthday bash. Going through my records for non-VelkyAl brewed dark beers it is clear that the pickings are very slim...so I will pivot and just mention a single beer from each of the geographies, and name a winner.

Virginia

• Tweed Dunkel - Selvedge Brewing, Charlottesville

Back at Yuletide 2024, I rocked up to the bar at Selvedge - gasp, shock, horror - and was given a bottle of Tweed, kellerbier style, in that it had been bottled straight out of the lagering tank with still a few weeks to go before being ready for prime time. When I cracked it open during the interregnum between Christmas Day and New Year, I thoroughly enjoyed it and partly rejoiced that it would be coming on tap once I was done with January being a month off the booze. If memory serves, this is double decocted, and all those extra Maillard reactions pay off in the silky smooth, deeply toasty flavours and mouthfeel of what was a great start to the drinking year.

Rest of the USA

• Schwarzbier - Bierkeller Brewing, Columbia, SC

Among the various lager styles of the world, schwarzbier is the closest to my first beery love, dry stout. However, I think schwarzbier has an edge over stout in the wonderful effects of cold fermentation and long lagering giving the beer a crispness that showcases the roasty snap of dark malts. Anyway, it was summer, and we were in Columbia, en-route to Florida for beach week, when Bierkeller had their Schwarzbier on tap. It was probably obscenely hot in South Carolina, but this was a beer that simply worked because it is so damned tasty, roasty without being acrid, clean without being boring, and eminently drinkable, so I did, pretty often.

Rest of the World

• Aecht Schlenkerla Erle - Heller-Bräu Trum, Bamberg, DE

As I mentioned in the BOAB post, rauchbier is one of my favourite types of beer in the world, I love a good slap across the face of beechwood, so when I saw Schlenkerla Erle at Beer Run, I bought a few bottles. Erle is another schwarzbier, but this time made with malts kilned over alder wood. Alder couldn't be more different from beech, deeply earthy, yet delicately sweet as well, paired with the roastiness of a schwarzbier and what you have here is a beer that speaks to the rustic peasant in me. I can only imagine how revelatory it would be from a stichfaß in the Dominikanerklause.

While the pickings may be slim for this category, the quality is far from wanting. I could happily drink these three beers all year round, but one stands out just ahead of the others, by virtue of being the confluence of two of my favourite things in beer, dark lagers and rauchbier. Yes, the Fuggled Dark Beer of 2025 is the magnificent Aecht Schlenkerla Erle from Heller-Bräu Trum in Bamberg - a beer that thankfully is still in stock in several bottle shops round here and will be finding its way into my fridge again very soon.

Fuggled Beers of the Year: BOAB

Audience meet BOAB, BOAB meet audience. If it is your first time meeting BOAB, you might just need to know that it is Fuggled-speak for beers that are "between orange and brown", so anything from Vienna lagers to brown ale and everything in between, erm obviously as that is in the name. Onwards ho!

Virginia

• Tavern Brown Ale - Alewerks Brewing, Williamsburg
• Beech Blanket - Selvedge Brewing, Charlottesville
• Loden Vienna Lager - Selvedge Brewing, Charlottesville

Honorable mentions: Threadenator; Houndstooth - Selvedge Brewing, Charlottesville; Fritz - SuperFly Brewing, Charlottesville; Wolf Gang Vienna Lager - Buffalo Mountain Brewing, Floyd.

Let's just get one thing out of the way Selvedge are going to dominate the Virginia lists for these reviews for the very simple reason I drink far more of their beer than any other brewery in Virginia. As I mentioned in a Vinepair article last year, they are knocking it out of the park, and if anything they are only getting better as Josh and gang get a full grip on their new brewing system.It may come as a surprise to some though that my Virginia BOAB beer of the year is not the magnificent Loden, but rather their rauchbier, Beech Blanket. I love rauchbier, to the extent that I am not interested in these silly little "hint of bacon" beers, hit me with lots of smoke! Beech Blanket is much more in the Spezial realm than Schlenkerla, and is absolutely redolent with pungent beech smoke, coupled though with a smooth drinkability that has made it a regular beer throughout this year. Also, fun fact, it makes a fantastic addition to many of Josh's pale lagers just to mix things up a bit.

Rest of the USA

• Altbier - Bierkeller Brewing, Columbia, SC
• Copper - Olde Mecklenburg Brewing, Charlotte, NC
• Munzler's Vienna Lager - Olde Mecklenburg Brewing, Charlotte, NC

Honorable mention: Little Nator - Tröeg's Brewing, Hershey, PA

It's pretty slim pickings in the rest of the USA section this year, largely because Mrs V and I haven't really got out and about the country much. Even with that said, the 3 selections here are all fantastic beers, but I have to choose just one, and that one is an example of one of my favourite styles, but first a story. The first time I had an example of this particular style from the place it originated, I was in Berlin, it was 2008 and Mrs V and I had gone to hang out with a friend. Wandering round that day we stumbled upon an art festival, and in the middle of festival was a mobile bar for Brauerei Schumacher in Düsseldorf. I was as giddy as a schoolboy to have my first real altbier actually from Düsseldorf as up to that point I had only had a version at Pivovar u Bulovky in Prague. Anyway, I fell in love with the style immediately, and it is still a bucket list item to drink Schumacher at source. The winner here though I drank in rather different circumstances, the kids were in bed, it was hot as hell in Florida, and so I went out to the balcony of the place we stay in and opened a one litre growler to Bierkeller Brewing's Altbier, and it was sublime. So good, I went and got my other growler of it, just to keep on drinking it. When we headed back north to Virginia, with a quick stop on Columbia, I stocked up. 

Rest of the World

• Pilsner Urquell - Plzeňský Prazdroj, Plzeň, CZ
• Oktober-Fest Märzen - Privatbrauerei Ayinger, Aying, DE
• Nut Brown Ale - Samuel Smiths Brewery, Tadcaster, UK

Again with the slim pickings, a combination of drinking mostly locally brewed beers and having really upped my homebrew game the last couple of years. The international BOAB beer of the year though is one whose arrival in the stores signifies the end of summer and the beginning of autumn, which by itself gives the game away. Ayinger are such a solid choice for German beer, though I wish I understood their production codes to work out the age of some of their beers, when it comes to seasonals though I worry less. I realise Oktober-Fest is not an official beer for the festival itself, but in my mind it captures the essence of a great festbier, hefty but not cloying, distinctive but not wacky, I relish every bottle I get my hands on.

Ah....decisions, decisions. Three great beers, three fantastic styles. Ultimately though, I have had a long affair with the winning style, ever since trying it for the first time in Prague (the suspense must be erm, well, suspenseful given I had all three styles for the first time in Prague)...but the winner is the style that won my heart ultimately in a park in Berlin. Yeah, altbier is just something I love and lament in almost equal measure given the scarcity of the style in the US. So, the BOAB beer of 2025 is the superb example of the style from Columbia's Bierkeller, a brewery that I recently highlighted in an article for Vinepair as one of the best in the US.

Fuggled Beers of the Year: Pale

It's that time of the year, the Winter Solstice is upon us, and what better to do than to review a year's worth of drinking? As has become my own tradition, I will break this down into multiple posts, one for pale beer, one for BOAB ("between orange and brown", and dark, and then an overall beer of the year, as well as one for Virginia cider of the year.

As I have done for several years now, I will highlight beers from Virginia, the rest of the US, and the rest of the world before crowning each category winner, so on with the show...

Virginia

• Spoolboy 10° Czech pale lager - Selvedge Brewing, Charlottesville
• Chain Stitch Helles - Selvedge Brewing, Charlottesville
• Coat Czech 12° Czech pale lager - Selvedge Brewing, Charlottesville

Honorable mentions: Ten - Sojourn Fermentory, Suffolk; Pylon Pilsner - Patch Brewing, Gordonsville; Voda Czech style Pilsner - Caboose Brewing, Vienna; Vested Interest - Selvedge Brewing, Charlottesville.

A clean sweep for the brewery I visit far more than any other, but in my defense, Josh makes beers that are simply delightful and would grace any kneipe, keller, hospoda, or hostinec throughout Central Europe. I didn't write my annual Top 10 Virginian Beers this summer, but it would have been overwhelmingly Selvedge Brewing products. All that said, even choosing one from the three mentioned is a monumentally difficult task as on any given time I am at Selvedge at the moment it is pretty much a given that I will be rotating through the three of them. Even so...I can only choose one, and that is the one that both Mrs V and I pretty much immediately order when we sit down, the one that both of us have raved about to friends, acquaintances, and anyone within earshot willing to listen, the one that takes both of us back to our spiritual home in Czechia. Spoolboy, the most perfect desítka imaginable, and one that I wish I could sit and drink with Evan, Max, and co back in Prague.

Rest of the USA

• Notch Pils - Notch Brewing, Salem, MA
• Gold - Live Oak Brewing, Austin, TX
• Urhell - Bierkeller Brewing, Columbia, SC

Honorable mentions: Bavarian Pilsner - Von Trapp Brewing, Stowe, VT; Pilsner - New Belgium Brewing, Fort Collins, CO; Captain Jack Pilsner - Olde Mecklenburg Brewing, Charlotte, NC; Pilz - Live Oak Brewing, Austin, TX; Kirkland Lager - Deschutes Brewing, OR

Despite being an abysmal beer tourist, as I have mentioned many a time in the past, when I do get to travel for work, I always make sure to find some time to unwind in a local brewery with a decent lager selection. I am sorry folks, but if you haven't worked out that pale lagers are my go-to beer style, and have been for many years, you simply haven't been paying attention. Probably my favourite annual trip to to a conference in Austin, Texas, that gives me the opportunity to get to Live Oak Brewing. So it was this spring, myself and colleagues rolled up and spent an excellent few hours in the tap room enjoying the many fine beers on offer. It was much to my delight that they had just tapped this year's batch of Gold, a Bavarian style pilsner that is, in my as ever unhumble opinion, the best pilsner that Live Oak brews. Yes I love Pilz, but Gold is just a nose ahead in my mind, and so I enjoyed plenty of it.

Rest of the World

• La Fin du Monde - Unibroue, Canada
• Jura - Pivovar Chroust, Czechia
• Tannenzäpfle - Badische Staatsbrauerei Rothaus, Germany

Sadly no foreign trips this year for me, so my international drinking has been limited to whatever I could find in the store, or in the case of the winner, something new and exciting that I hadn't expected to see at ChurchKey on a business trip to DC. Also, a fun fact, the beer in question comes from a part of Prague that many, many moons ago, I actually very close to, as in just one metro stop away. Obviously then the international pale beer of the year is Jura from Pivovar Chroust in Prague. As I say, I was sitting in ChurchKey, perusing the beer list and my eyes were drawn to the word "Jura" partly because I had just bought a couple of bottles of Jura whisky and was surprised to see that collection of letters in a beer list. What followed was a fantastically bracing, bitter 12° Czech pale lager that was an exceedingly happy surprise.

Three fantastic examples of Central European pale lagers in the Plzeň tradition, but obviously I can choose but one. That one will come as no surprise to anyone that knows me, or follows my Instagram, it is the one that come the end of this week I will be drinking having finished work for the year. Yes, then the Fuggled Pale Beer of 2025, a prize still unencumbered with the grubbiness of filthy lucre and commercial considerations is Selvedge's magnificent Spoolboy 10° Czech Pale Lager, a beer I will miss deeply when this batch is gone, and then I will begin my campaign to bring it back as soon as possible.

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.

Fuggled Beers of the Year: Between Orange and Brown

With pale out the way, let's move up the colour spectrum a little, into the realm of amber, orange, reddish hues, and even veering into brown - yeah baby, it's BOAB time...

Virginia

• Loden Vienna Lager - Selvedge Brewing, Charlottesville
• Trilby Best Bitter - Selvedge Brewing, Charlottesville
• Rules of Civility No. 73 - Dynasty Brewing, Ashburn

Honorable mentions: Tabolcloth - Selvedge Brewing, Charlottesville; Houndstooth - Selvedge Brewing, Charlottesville; CU Later - Patch Brewing, Gordonsville; Rules of Civility No. 99 - Dynasty Brewing, Ashburn; 1841 Steinlifter - Devils Backbone Brewing, Nellysford.

Given the breadth of the colour spectrum here, this could very easily have turned into the Selvedge show - they are knocking it out of the park with their Central European lagers, indeed Loden is currently my go to beer whenever I am in the taproom...however, for all my Mitteleuropaphilia I am still at heart a Brit, and best bitter is such a rare beast in these here parts, that Trilby nicks it by a short nose. Hopped with a modern British hop called Endeavour, served from either Lukr tap or the beer engine, Trilby is an absolute delight, with blackcurrant and spice being very much to the forefront, but with classic British biscuity notes giving structure and depth to a stonkingly easy beer to drink. I have become so enamored with Endeavour that I have started using it in my own bitters, and I think EKG just relegated to the Championship...

Rest of the USA

• Bauern Bock - Olde Mecklenburg Brewing, Charlotte, NC
• L'il Nator - Tröeg's Brewing, Hershey, PA
• Sommerbier - Bierkeller, Columbia, SC

Honorable Mentions: Ungespundet - Notch Brewing, Salem, MA; Perpetual IPA - Tröeg's Brewing, Hershey, PA; Tumbler - Sierra Nevada, Mills Creek, NC.

I am just going to put this out there, I don't understand sampling culture. The idea of going from brewery to brewery every weekend and just doing flights seems pointless to me, as Dickens had Mr Swiveller say in "The Old Curiosity Shop"..."it can't be tasted in a sip!" I quite agree Mr Dickens, I quite agree. If I do a flight it is to find the beer I want to have a couple of pints of. Anyway, the winner of best BOAB beer in the rest of the USA is the absolute antithesis of sampling culture, is it a beer that requires the devotion of a maß. With a starting gravity of "only", if memory serves, 9° Plato, leading to an ABV of "only" 3.6%, I drank an awful lot of Bierkeller's majestic Sommerbier when I was in South Carolina over the summer, in a maß, naturally. Oh and I bought about 5 litres of it home to Virginia too. It is simply the perfect summer lager. Crushable, flavourful, and demanding of being drunk at length and in volume. Perfekt.

Rest of the World

• Maibock - Privatbrauerei Ayinger, Aying, DE
• Oktober Fest-Märzen - Privatbrauerei Ayinger, Aying, DE
• Kráľovská Taberna 12° - Nestville Beer, Hniezdne, SK

Even though my drinking tastes definitely lean toward the sessionable, there are times when I want something stronger, and so on one of my fairly regular jaunts to Northern Virginia for work I popped into the Wegmans at Gainesville to see what they had available. Unlike our local Wegmans, they had Ayinger's inordinately easy to drink Maibock, and of course I picked up a few 4 packs and enjoyed them in the early spring sunshine, sat on the front porch watching the kids run around like maniacs. Beautifully clean and crispy, but still full bodied and luscious, ideal for relaxing afternoons...

Unlike over categories, there is a clear winner here, for a few reasons. Obviously because it was a simply superb beer, but also the fact that while it was available and I was in that neck of the woods it was practically all I drank, and finally the fact that it has inspired me to make my own version of such a beer in my homebrewing plans for 2025, given a week or 2 of it is not enough. So Bierkeller Sommerbier take the BOAB crown, and I hope to see more beers like it in the future!

Fuggled Beers of the Year: Pale

I know, I know, I haven't posted anything in a while on here. In my defense I have been out and about promoting my book, "Virginia Cider: A Scrumptious History", and life has had a way of late of getting in the way of me writing much. As the year is drawing to its end though, the traditional reviews are in order, and while that won't save 2024 from being the complete year with the fewest number of posts in Fuggled history, it will at least be an outlet for some thoughts...and as ever, we begin with pale beers, as in those that aren't noticeably too amber or orange, a nice subjective line there for sure.

As has become my tradition, I will pick beers from Virginia, the rest of the US, and the rest of the world, eventually leading to a best in category beer which will go forward for the overall beer of the year. That said, let's go...

Virginia

• Coat Czech - Selvedge Brewing, Charlottesville
• Krypto Pilsner - Decipher Brewing, Charlottesville
• Found Artifacts - Wheatland Spring Brewery, Waterford

Honorable mentions: Pylon Pilsner - Patch Brewing, Gordonsville; Export Golden Lager - Devils Backbone Brewing, Lexington; Das Gut German Pilsner - Caboose Brewing, Vienna; Wharf Hill 1906 Pre-Prohibition Lager - Wharf Hill Brewing, Smithfield

Every year, this category gets harder and harder, mainly because more and more breweries in Virginia are stepping up their pale lager game, and that is, as you well know if you have followed me for a while, is my sweet spot. Said sweet spot particularly hones in on Czech style pale lagers, I absolutely love them, especially if said lagers are brewed to 12° Plato or less - personal bugbear is seeing breweries putting out beers labeled as "Czech Pilsner" or "Bohemian Pilsner" and it turns out to be a 14°, or more, lager. The vast majority of lager brewed and drunk in Czechia is 10° or 12°, so please can we have something akin to what your average Jan or Jana would drink in the pub?  Anyway, gripe aside, Selvedge Brewing brought out a 12°, double decocted, extensively lagered Czech style pale lager earlier this year that was right up there with the very best in Czechia, no that is not hyperbole, it was simply superb - I waxed lyrical here.

Rest of the USA

• Notch Pils - Notch Brewing, Salem, MA
• Central Artery Helles - Trillium Brewing, Boston, MA
• Urhell - Bierkeller Brewing, Columbia, SC

Honorable Mentions: Captain Jack Pilsner - Olde Mecklenburg Brewing, Charlotte, NC; Sunshine Pils - Tröegs Brewing, Hershey, PA; Bavarian Pilsner - Von Trapp Brewing, Stowe, VT; Kellerbier - Bierkeller Brewing, Columbia, SC; Lollihop IPA - Tröegs Brewing, Hershey, PA.

Everything I just said about 10° Czech style pale lagers obviously points to winner for pale beers from outside of Virginia. I have had Notch Pils many times in cans, usually muled down to VA from friends in New England, but in May I was up in Boston for work and so took the opportunity to get to their Brighton venue to try out their wares on tap, and fresh from the Lukr, topped with a cap of glorious wet foam, it was an absolutely delight. Had it been closer to my hotel and conference venue I would have gone every night for more, and now I keep half a sneaky eye on Boston for work related stuff...in the interests of science I am sure you are aware.

Rest of the World

• Kaltenecker 11° - Pivovar Kaltenecker, SK
• Icelandic White Ale - Einstök Ölgerð, IS
• Martins 10° - Pivovar Martins, SK

A combination of having not had a work trip outside of the US this year, and the continuing improvement in pale lagers, ahem beers, in the US has meant that the international pale beers of the year are from really slim pickings. That's not to say they are second rate beers, just I have mostly been drinking American this year. That said, it is to Central Europe that we head for the international pale beer of 2024, and so obviously it is Slovakia, and in this case a brewery I had tried in Prague before heading across the ocean to live in Virginia. Kaltenecker 11° might not be the most well know beer on this side of the Pond - I only had it because my best friend effectively overloaded my suitcase with Slovak beer last year - but it is definitely an excellent pale lager in the pilsner vein. Beautifully bitter, using Premiant in addition to the classic Saaz, it is something that I wished I could bash pint after pint of. I only had one though and so I took it slow and savoured every drop.

Being an unreconstructed lover of all things Central European pale lager, this category is invariably the most challenging each year to settle on a winner. This year though, it is made a little easier by the fact that I can simply choose the beer I had the utter joy of caning for several weeks in a row, reveling, both in the tap room and at home, in some Czech based Ostalgia because the beer is that good...Selvedge's Coat Czech it is then, and it truly is not hyperbole when I say it is as good as anything in Czechia, including the sublime Únětické Pivo 12° that was its inspiration.

Fuggled Boozer of the Year

Originally I considered doing a "brewery of the year" but as I don't want to drag this year end review into 2024, or try you good folks' patience with endless posts about 2023, I ditched it and decided to just have boozer of the year as my final fling, especially as this year I have travelled outside the US a couple of times, so a rest of the world category is actually a possibility.

My definition of "boozer" here is pretty all encompassing, places where I can get a full serving of beer, whether that be a pint, half litre, or 12oz bottle, so brewery tap room counts as well as a cafe with decent beer selection. A Prague park bench at 2 in the morning with bottles of Bernard from the potraviny though doesn't count, mainly because it was bloody cold. Onward then to the places...

Virginia

• Caboose Tavern - Vienna
• Devils Backbone Basecamp - Roseland
• Patch Brewing - Gordonsville

Honorable mentions: Kardinal Hall - Charlottesville; Beer Run - Charlottesville

There are some places that are just special to me, and every single one of the boozer in this list are places I go to regularly and that I love drinking in. In several of them, I know the staff well enough that it is almost a stupid question as to what beer, or at least beer style, I want to drink. One place though stands out simply because I am convinced my drinking life over the last 14 years would be all the poorer if it didn't exist. I am talking, of course about the original Devils Backbone brewpub down in Nelson County. While the campus, for want of a better word, is far more extensive than it was in 2009, it has maintained the vibe of an Alpine lodge, especially when the weather is dreich outside and the fires are going. On our last few visits I have become somewhat misty eyed looking around at the now worn in and comfortable building and how much I love going there. It helps that Jason makes some of the best beer in Virginia, and founder Steve's vision is very much being honored to this day.

Rest of the US

• Live Oak Brewing - Austin, TX
• Olde Mecklenburg Brewing - Charlotte, NC
• Savage Craft - West Columbia, SC

Honorable mentions: Hofbräuhaus - Pittsburgh, OH; Hunter-Gatherer Hangar - Columbia, SC; Scholz Garten - Austin, TX

I love beer gardens, especially beer gardens that have air conditioned tap rooms as well, which is basically every beer garden in the South. Life in this part of the world would be awful without air conditioning. I have a particular fondness for the kind of beer garden that has large mature trees that dapple the sunlight, water stations dotted around, a kids play area, and some of my favourite beer to boot. Every time Mrs V and I head to South Carolina for some family function, we drive within a mile of Olde Mecklenburg Brewing and their 8 acre beer garden in the heart of Charlotte. Now, every time we are driving to or from SC, we stop and stretch legs, have a beer, and let the kids run around for a while in the play area. We are so enamored with Olde Meck, that even though it is 4.5 hours into our 6.5 hour drive rather than the midway point, we always stop there, and look forward to it muchly.

Rest of the World

• Hostomická nelevarna - Prague, CZ
• U Slovanské lipy - Prague, CZ
• Fjöruhúsið Hellnum - Hellnar, IS

Honorable mentions: Dobra Trafika - Prague,CZ; Únětický Pivovar - Únětice, CZ; Café Captein & Co - Amsterdam, NL.

No surprise here that the list is dominated by pubs in Prague, Czech beer culture speaks to my soul, and I always feel deeply at home in a traditional Czech pivnice, hospoda, hostinec, pick your Czech word. It is also not a surprise that the best boozer in the rest of the world is the place where I had my favourite session this year with my favourite people. Obviously then I am speaking about Hostomická nelevarna (sorry Evan), where my friends an I revelled in world class beer, great snacks, and the kind of time that only a great pub can produce.

That is also the reason that the Fuggled Boozer of the Year is also Hostomická nelevarna, a pub so small that I could in theory recreate it in one half of my garage if I had the skills. It is everything a proper old school boozer should be, unfussy, unpretentious, maybe a little rough around the edges, but with world class beer and the classic Czech vibe of being a place dedicated to the drinking beer with friends. 

Fuggled Beer of the Year

Having whittled down my long lists to short lists, we come to the final beer list of my annual review, the winners of the three categories. To recap then, the winning beers were:

• Pale - Fabián 10° - Pivovar Hostomice, CZ
• Between Orange and Brown - Tabolcloth - Selvedge Brewing/Tabol Brewing, Virginia
• Dark - Sláinte - Three Notch'd Brewing, Virginia

I knew when I was planning my trip to Prague that I would find the necessary time to get round to Pivovarská Nelevarna, the city tap for Pivovar Hostomice. I knew that I wanted to introduce my friends to what I think of as one of my favourite pubs on the planet, as well as, in my unhumble opinion, the best lagers in the Czech Republic. That Fabián 10° took the plaudits as the Fuggled Pale Beer of the Year was pretty much a shoe-in. My friends and I went to Pivovarská Nelevarna the night before we all had to head back to our parts of the world, met up with Evan as well, and drank exceedingly liberal amounts of desítka. Moreish, redolent with Czech Saaz hops, a nice bready malt body, and a finish that is both crisp and soft at the same time - don't ask me, it's just how it feels. It is drinking sessions like this that make it difficult to bother with desítky when I get back to Virginia because it just highlights to me again that you simply cannot make an authentic Czech style pale lager without the traditional process as much as ingredients. You know what I mean, and nothing will change my mind.

I mentioned in the post for beers between orange and brown, that I had made a mad dash across Charlottesville to try Tabolcloth from the 10 litre stichfaß, managing to snag the very last half litre as it kicked in under an hour. A week later and I was back at Selvedge Brewing to try the regular draft version of this delightful 5% vollbier inspired by Josh's love of Franconia - and not the one in Northern Virginia. Although this was a collaboration between Selvedge and Richmond's Tabol Brewing, there was a difference between the version available in Charlottesville and the one in Richmond. Selvedge had fermented theirs with TUM-35, a recently rediscovered Franconian yeast strain that I find leaves a slightly fuller body and a gently rustic character. I would often imagine drinking Tabolcloth sat in a village beer garden somewhere in the hinterlands of Franconia as I sat with yet another half litre. Tabolcloth was basically my beer of the summer this year, so often did I swing by Selvedge, either on draft or in crowlers for home drinking.

There is something about a regular strength, Irish style stout that I find deeply appealing, and in many ways I am sure this could apply to many of my favourite types of beer. It is deeply unfussy, unpretentious, and yet flavourful and invigorating. There is also something fun about having to order your second pint when you have had a mere mouthful or two of your first, simply so it can get up to the proper temperature. Three Notch'd Sláinte, once suitably warmed, had all the classic roasty flavours you expect from a stout, coffee, dark chocolate, slightly singed toast, and all so beautifully blended together that you could easily forget that it was only 4.2% abv, the medium full body belying it's relative lightness. It is the kind of beer that I wish was more readily available in my local brewery taprooms.

Choosing a single winner from these three beers is, as it seems to be every year, difficult, as were any one of them a permanent feature of drinking central VA, I would likely drink it an awful lot. However, only one of them could actually claim to have been drunk fairly regularly this year, and so the Fuggled Beer of the Year is...Tabolcloth Vollbier from both Selvedge Brewing and Tabol Brewing. It was simply wonderful, and I hope it makes a comeback when Selvedge open up in their new venue in the new year.

Fuggled Beers of the Year: Dark

Having meandered through the shades of ochre that makes up the spectrum from orange to brown, we move into the properly dark beer category. Let us then descend into the darkness...

Virginia

• Sláinte - Three Notch'd Brewing, Charlottesville
• Spire City - Wheatland Spring Brewing, Waterford
• London Porter - Superfly Brewing, Charlottesville

Honorable mentions: Break Out Your Wellies - Selvedge Brewing Company; Schwartz Bier - Devils Backbone Brewing, Roseland; Porter - Port City Brewing, Alexandria.

If you lingered around Fuggled for any reasonable length of time, you will no doubt have seen me comment about how Guinness was my first legal beer, on my 1th birthday at the Dark Island Hotel back home on Benbecula. Irish style dry stouts have long been one of my favourite styles, especially when watching the rugby - which this year included the World Cup, in which Scotland got the group from hell (seriously, Ireland AND South Africa in our group). Anyway, Derek, one of the owners of Three Notch'd is from Ireland, and a fellow rugby fan, all round good bloke, and randomly meeting him in a pub back in 2012 still counts as one of my favourite things since living in Charlottesville. So when we met at Three Notch'd to watch Scotland lose heroically to an excellent Ireland side in a magnificent game of running rugby, I was thrilled to see a 4.2% dry stout on tap, and once I had let it warm up to the proper temperature it was magnificent, I might even dare to say on a par with O'Hara's...

Rest of the US

• Schwarz - Von Trapp Brewing, Stowe, VT
• Karlův 13° - Schilling Beer Co., Littleton, NH
• Dunkel - Von Trapp Brewing, Stowe, VT

An example of each of the major dark lager styles makes up the final three from the US in the dark beer category, dunkel, tmavé, schwarzbier. But the winner is, in my mind at least, clear. Von Trapp are one of my go-to breweries in general, and when they brought out a schwarzbier as a special release way back in February I was a happy camper. I have long been a fan of the style in general, I prefer the roastiness and dry finish of a schwarzbier to the sweeter finish of a dunkel or the more classic iterations of tmavé. Von Trapp's Schwarz is a little stronger than the Köstritzer, the extra body being very welcome. I hope they release it again soon.

Rest of the World

• 14° Tmavý - Pivovar Hostomice, Hostomice, CZ
• Antidepressant Autumn Dark Lager - Klášterní Pivovar Strahov, Prague, CZ
• Svijanská Kněžna - Pivovar Svijany, Svijany, CZ

A clean sweep for Czech breweries and each of these beers was had with my best friends whilst wandering around Prague in November on an extended birthday shindig. The winner though is the one that I was most excited to see on tap, even though it wasn't listed on the menu when we arrived, is Strahov's lovely Autumn Dark Lager, one of the inspirations for the tmavě I designed for Devils Backbone back in 2010, called Morana. Lots of toasty bread, a subtle bitter cocoa note, and a nice sharp hoppy bite to snap everything back to attention makes this a far too easy to drink beer, and had we not had plans to meet up with friends later that day, I would happily have sat in the brewpub at Strahov and drunk it all afternoon and evening.

Friends and dark beers seems to have been a theme this year, indeed just yesterday I met up with a couple of friends here in Central Virginia, went to watch the Liverpool vs Arsenal match, and had the London Porter from Superfly Brewing mentioned above. The winner also ties in with a sporting event, in this case watching Ireland beat Scotland in the rugby world cup back in the autumn, Three Notch'd Brewing's Sláinte Irish style stout. A fantastic version of one of my go-to styles, and one that I wish were a regular part of the Three Notch'd lineup, especially if there is rugby to watch at the same time.

Fuggled Beers of the Year: Between Orange and Brown

BOAB is such a catchy little moniker isn't it? I almost changed it for ORB - orange, red, and brown - but having laid down a marker with BOAB, thus is shall remain. Let's look at the beers for this category though shall we?

Virginia

• Tabolcloth Vollbier - Selvedge Brewing, Charlottesville & Tabol Brewing, Richmond
• Franconian Kellerbier - Port City Brewing, Alexandria
• Alt Bier - Devils Backbone Brewing, Nellysford

Honorable mentions: O'Fest - Devils Backbone Brewing, Nellysford; 80/- - Decipher Brewing, Charlottesville; CU Later - Patch Brewing, Gordonsville; Dunkel - Caboose Brewing, Vienna.

Back in the dog days of summer and early days of autumn, I raced across Charlottesville to drop the twins off with Mrs V at her school so I could make to a taproom for a stichfaß of a new lager from a brewery I have come to love. The lager in question was inspired by the brewer's love of all things Franconian, and was a collaboration beer to boot. Obviously I am talking about Selvedge and Tabol's magnificent Tabolcloth vollbier, a 5% amber lager that simply reeked of Franconian rusticity, and I drank literally litres of it, both at Selvedge and at Tabol's taproom in Richmond. Beautiful to look at and a delight to drink.

Rest of the US

• Copper - Olde Mecklenburg Brewing, Charlotte, NC
• Oktoberfest - Sierra Nevada, Chico, CA
• Augustin - Schilling Beer Co., Littleton, NH

Having one of your favourite beers validated as an outstanding example of a style by someone you respect deeply is incredibly satisfying. So when Evan Rail posted to his Instagram account that he thought Olde Mecklenburg Copper was better than many altbiers from Düsseldorf I may have smiled broadly. The fact that it is a core part of the Olde Meck lineup means that I am able to stock up every time I pass through Charlotte to or from South Carolina. One of the things I appreciate most about Copper is that unlike many other US brewed altbiers, it doesn't use crystal malt, and thus isn't a brown syrupy mess of a beer. Proper ingredients and methods are so important.

Rest of the World

• Polotmavé - Klášterní Pivovar Strahov, Prague, CZ
• Arctic Pale Ale - Einstök Ölgerđ, Akureyri, IS
• Oktober Fest-Märzen - Privatbrauerei Ayinger, Aying, DE

This one might come as a shock to some, but in a surprising turn of events, a top fermented beer beats out a pair of bottom fermented. Mrs V and I took the boys to Iceland this summer for 10 days and passing through the airport we took the advice to buy beer there on the way out rather than paying full price in a regular store. I picked up a 12 pack of Arctic Pale Ale mainly because I already knew it is good and a beer I will always happily drink. When we got to our accommodation and I broke out the cans to put into the fridge, I noticed the packaged on date was the week before we arrived in Iceland - seriously fresh beer. Wow, the hops in fresh Arctic Pale Ale absolutely pop and it took all my will power not to cane the 12 pack in a couple of sessions.

Three stellar beers from four breweries that never cease to impress me, each of them has earnt that special place in my world where I will try their more outlandish beers simply because I know they do the classics so damned well. As it is, I can only choose one beer to be the Fuggled BOAB of 2023, and that title goes to the Tabolcloth Vollbier collaboration brew from Selvedge Brewing and Tabol Brewing. Good beer in my world is the kind of brew that a single pint or half litre is simply not enough, and Tabolcloth was moreish beyond words. I hope that it becomes a regular feature at both breweries as it is a simply wonderful beer.