The innaugural 30 Days of IPA has now finished, and what a month it was! We've sampled custom brews, chatted to brewers, investigated beer pumps, played golf, lost golf balls, battled on the football pitch, been bepuzzled by pub quizzes, rocked out with twelve IPA (Indie, Punk & Alternative) bands, eaten an extraordinary amount of curry and quaffed a very responsible and respectable amount of fine beer.
Firstly, some thanks:
The final event was the Grand Gala Dinner in the Counting House, and a stylish affair it was. Following a sumptuous Indian themed meal we held a raffle, enjoyed some comedy, heard about the good work SVR do and polished the night off with some live music and dancing. A special mention goes out to Legion Airsoft, who won their own £500 paintballing voucher and promptly auctioned it to raise a substantial extra donation to charity. The main event of the evening was a talk from Pete Brown, author of Hops & Glory, who clearly struck a chord with the beer-loving audience.
Not forgetting, of course, the awards ceremony. There were two main awards this year:
Champion IPA 2012
The best IPA featured during the month was voted for by the public via this website and through voting forms in the pubs, totalling 1,173 votes. Of the twenty featured beers the top three were, in the traditional reverse order:
3rd - Deuchars Imperial from the Caledonian Brewery, 9.2%
2nd - Taking a big 13% of the public vote is Broughton's Clipper IPA
Champion IPA 2012
Deuchars, by The Caledonian Brewery (20.5%)
Deuchars is an iconic beer, a firm favourite in most Edinburgh pubs and far beyond. Winner of over 40 awards, including CAMRA’s Supreme Champion Beer of Britain in 2002, it's always been a fine ambassador for cask beer in general, converting many a lager drinker. Our congratulations to them on yet another award!
IPA Personality 2012
We asked each of the participating brewers and pubs to nominate a person from the world of cask ale, be it a brewer, a publican, a writer or anyone else who embodies IPA. Somebody who has supported the beer style in some way, and who they thought were particularly worthy of recognition. The final vote by our industry panel picked one of the following:
Jim Appleby
"Jim is one of the brewers in charge of Worthington's White Shield, an IPA that is one of CAMRA's most celebrated ales. This beer is one of the oldest IPA recipes still in production, putting Jim at the head of an illustrious timeline."
Craig Frood
"As far as I am concerned Craig is IPA, pretty good chance if you cut him he'd bleed it. Since I met him he has been tireless in his furthering of the product and really shows a passion for it all."
Russell Sharpe
"Russell worked for many years at the Caledonian Brewery and is largely held as being the man who invented Deuchars IPA in the 80's. He is now behind the scenes at the Innis & Gunn brand with his sons, their middle names are Innes & Gunn."
And the winner is....
*russles envelope*
Craig Frood!
Craig was a massively popular winner, and received a large number of nominations from across the industry, including several of the other breweries.
It was a great month, so good in fact that we'll be doing it all again next year! We'll see you in...
