TOPIC:

In the interests of having as big a mandate as possible, the 2009 ICB Awards will be chosen by the entirety of the ICB membership, or at least that portion of it who is interested in participating <!-- s:) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!-- s:) --> We're still going to stick with the general timetable of previous years and make the announcement of the winners at Easter time, at the Franciscan Well festival, most likely.

As with last year, the voting will decide three awards: Beer of the Year, and two runners-up.

[b:2aoj7tqw]Eligible beers[/b:2aoj7tqw] are any which are both:
1. Brewed in Ireland (including Northern Ireland), [b:2aoj7tqw]and are[/b:2aoj7tqw]
2. Commercially available in Ireland (including NI) between 1st April 2008 and 31 March 2009.

This includes one-offs, seasonals, festival specials, limited editions and any other beer so long as the brewer is asking people for money for it. It does not include ciders, meads or other non-beer brews.

The competition is dispense-neutral: each candidate is only listed once, regardless of the number of different ways it is packaged and served.

To help with decision-making, this post has a list of every eligible beer at the bottom. I'm bound to have forgotten some, so please post any that are missing to this thread and I'll add them in. Similarly, I know pretty much for a fact that there will be new beers coming to market during the remaining months of the competition. Let us know here when you see them -- names, please, not "That one I had in that place. It's brown". And of course if any of the ones listed here are phantoms, tell me and I'll remove them.

Voting is open to everyone who is a member of ICB on the closing date of 31 March. If you're a commercial brewer you're allowed vote freely, but if you vote for your own beer we will point at you and laugh.

[b:2aoj7tqw]To vote[/b:2aoj7tqw]: On or before 31 March 2009 (preferably a week or two before, but take your time if you're still making up your mind), send a list of your top ten beers from the field to <!-- e --><a href="This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. If you can't make it to ten, that's not a problem, just give us what you've got. The competition will work best, I think, if you limit your votes to beers you [i:2aoj7tqw]actually drank during the period of the competition[/i:2aoj7tqw], but we won't be holding anyone to that. Remember, it must have been available to [i:2aoj7tqw]purchase[/i:2aoj7tqw] during this period, however. And please include your ICB username in the e-mail.

The results will be decided by (something resembling) PR-STV: we will eliminate all the beers with no votes, then start picking out the ones with few votes and reassigning those votes to the second preference. This continues until only four beers are left, and the top three are the prize-winners.

I would hope that within a few days of the polls closing, I'd be able to produce a shortlist of maybe the top ten beers, publish it to the board and let the relevant brewers know that they may be in line for an award. But it's really easy for me to say that now. It's my intention, anyway.

I'll sticky this thread. Please post any questions to it, and don't vote yet (unless you really want to). Just get thinking about what your favourite Irish beers are.

[size=150:2aoj7tqw]The Field[/size:2aoj7tqw]
Acton's Lager (Messrs Maguire)
Acton's Stout (Messrs Maguire)
Acton's Wheat Beer (Messrs Maguire)
Alt (Porterhouse)
Amstel (Heineken)
Barney's Brew (Hilden)
Béal Bán (Beoir Chorca Duibhne)
Beamish Red (Beamish & Crawford)
Beamish Stout (Beamish & Crawford)
Belfast Ale (Whitewater)
Belfast Blonde (Hilden)
Belfast Lager (Whitewater)
Best (Messrs Maguire)
Blarney Blonde (Franciscan Well)
Bock (Messrs Maguire)
Brainblásta (Porterhouse)
Bud Light (Diageo)
Budweiser (Diageo)
Carling Draught (Beamish & Crawford)
Carlsberg (Diageo)
Carlsberg Mid-Strength (Diageo)
Chiller (Porterhouse)
Chocolate Truffle Stout (Porterhouse)
Clotworthy Dobbin (Whitewater)
Coors Light (Heineken)
Crown Glory (Whitewater)
Curim Gold (Carlow)
Extra (Messrs Maguire)
Fosters (Beamish & Crawford)
Friar Weisse (Franciscan Well)
Galway Hooker (Hooker)
Galway Hooker Dark Wheat Beer (Hooker)
Guinness (Diageo)
Guinness Foreign Extra (Diageo)
Guinness Mid-Strength (Diageo)
Guinness Special Export (Diageo)
Halt (Hilden)
Harp (Diageo)
Haus (Messrs Maguire)
Headless Dog (Hilden)
Heineken Draught (Heineken)
Hersbrucker (Porterhouse)
Hilden (Hilden)
Hop Head (Porterhouse)
Imperial (Messrs Maguire)
Irish Coffee Porter (Hooker)
Kilkenny (Diageo)
Kinsale Lager (Beamish & Crawford)
Kronenbourg 1664 (Beamish & Crawford)
Macardle's (Diageo)
Mao (Unknown)
Marks & Spencer Irish Stout (Carlow)
Mill Ale (Whitewater)
Miller (Beamish & Crawford)
Molly Malone Porter (Hilden)
Molly's Chocolate Stout (Hilden)
Murphy's Red (Heineken)
Murphy's Stout (Heineken)
Nut Brown (Whitewater)
O'Hara's Celebration (Carlow)
O'Hara's Leann Folláin (Carlow)
O'Hara's Red (Carlow)
O'Hara's Stout (Carlow)
Oyster (Porterhouse)
Phúca (Franciscan Well)
Pils (Messrs Maguire)
Plain (Messrs Maguire)
Plain (Porterhouse)
Porter (Messrs Maguire)
Porterhouse Red (Porterhouse)
Purgatory (Franciscan Well)
Rebel Lager (Franciscan Well)
Rebel Red (Franciscan Well)
Rusty (Messrs Maguire)
Satzenbrau (Diageo)
Scullion's (Hilden)
Shandon Stout (Franciscan Well)
Shiva (Unknown)
Silver (Hilden)
Smithwick's (Diageo)
Solas Lite (Unknown)
Temple Brau (Porterhouse)
Titanic Quarter (Hilden)
TSB (Porterhouse)
Warsteiner Draught (Diageo)
Weavers Gold (Clanconnell)
Weiss (Messrs Maguire)
Wrassler's XXXX (Porterhouse)

Kölsch (Porterhouse) should be available in the next month or so if you want to add that

I had that, and took it off just in case. I think I prefer to wait until it actually becomes available.

what about styles ie irish stout

This was discussed last year here[/url:3t39po1t]and here[/url:3t39po1t]. We came to the conclusion then that there are too few representative in any given style to make it meaningful, and it has more impact to just have "Beer!". It worked well last year, so this year, given the expanded voting period and not being limited to one event, it should be more representative.

in the interest of demoracy it should be put to a vote again.