Here’s our annual round up of the best beers, breweries and pubs we encountered in 2025.
What can we say? Hardly anybody else bothers doing this anymore but we’re creatures of habit. We first took part in the Golden Pints back in 2011 and find it a pleasingly reassuring ritual.
It’s also good to have in mind throughout the year as we roam from town to town, and from pub to pub. It makes us look at the beer we’re drinking and ask: “Could this be a contender?”
Before we get down to business, a bit of encouragement: nobody owns the Golden Pints thing; anyone can join in; you don’t even need a blog to take part. Post your own list on social media as a thread, or even in the comments on this post if you like.
Our favourite cask ale of 2025
We cannot resist a beautifully clear, dangerously dry, cask-conditioned pale-and-hoppy. Unfortunately, it’s not a style we see all that often in Bristol, where soft and hazy rules.
So, Newbarns Canopus, a cask IPA at 4.5%, hit the spot like you would not believe. We found it hard to switch to another beer and, indeed, hard to leave the pub while it was available.
Honourable mentions: Hobson’s Mild, 3.2%, which we really got for the first time this past summer; Ashley Down Red Stoat, 5.2%; and Thornbridge Jaipur, 5.9%, which continues to be the single most exciting cask ale to stumble upon in a pub.
Our favourite keg beer of 2025
We ended up rewriting this post in mid-December after an encounter with The Brewery of St Mars of the Desert (SMOD) in Sheffield last weekend. We’d heard how good their beer was from many sources over the years but had never actually made it there ourselves thanks to the distance, the pandemic, and our preference for pubs over taprooms. Many of the beers were fantastic but the one that nearly made us weep with joy was Rotkäppchen, an homage to the Rotbiers of Nuremberg at 4.4%. It made us feel like giddy baby beer geeks again. Wonderful.
Honourable mentions: OneTwo Zacuscă Gose (5.2%), which we drank in Sibiu in Romania, blew Jess away by somehow turning aubergine and red pepper into a delicious sour beer; Thornbridge Rattle Snake West Coast IPA (6.5%) of which we wrote in our weekly tasting notes on Patreon, “the kind of beer we’d have trekked halfway across London for in the noughties”.
Our favourite packaged beer of 2025
Remember how we took two months off to travel around the Balkans? It doesn’t quite seem real to us many months later. And we were rather surprised to encounter a beer of the year contender in Bulgaria.
Beer Bastards Баси кефа (can, 6.7%) has a name which translates to something like ‘flipping delightful’, but not quite that. We think it’s brewed for them in the Netherlands (if anyone knows otherwise, please correct us) and it was rather like a saison – highly carbonated, light bodied, fresh and easy to drink. There were some subtle tropical notes, a hint of Witbier fruitiness, and a firm bitter hoppiness. We were tempted to stuff our rucksacks with slabs of the stuff and bring some home.
Honourable mentions: We’ve drunk an awful lot of Brasserie de la Senne Taras Boulba from bottles this year.
Our overall favourite beer of 2025
For the first time in a while, our beer of the year isn’t the best cask ale we had but the best packaged beer. Perhaps it’s because we drank it on holiday, or maybe it’s because it stood out surrounded by slightly rougher and/or blander Bulgarian and Romanian beers. But, look, it’s our golden pints, so Beer Bastards Баси кефа it is.
Our favourite brewery of 2025
We made this choice some months ago after we found ourselves walking into a pub, seeing several taps with this brewery’s beer on offer, and thinking: “Oh, excellent! This is going to be a good session…”
It’s Newbarns whose beers we’ve seen in Bristol quite a bit this year. We’ve been impressed by their precise, scholarly takes on Continental styles, and by their vibrant freshness. Only one or two have been anything less than excellent, catapulting Newbarns into the ‘reliable brewery’ category for us.
Honourable mentions: We’ve become quite interested in Ideal Day which, like Newbarns, has more hits than misses, and brews across an interesting range of styles; and if we’d been more than once, we can imagine the The Brewery of St Mars of the Desert might have got the gong here.
Our favourite pub in 2025
The King’s Head in Bristol is the one we’ve found ourselves gravitating towards. It balances a cosy, properly pubby atmosphere with a beer list that’s constantly changing, and always interesting. Whether it’s alone, together, or with friends, we invariably have a good time, and usually find ourselves recommending it to people who want to know where to drink in central Bristol.
Honourable mentions: Last year’s winner was The Swan With Two Necks, across Bristol in St Judes and it was a close thing this year; those who prefer a bit of grot, and some punk attitude, might prefer it to the pub above.
Our favourite taproom in 2025
The Brewery of St Mars of the Desert shows what a taproom can be. It feels like a mountain cabin or a Bavarian village Wirtshaus. Or maybe it’s the one bar in a small town in Belgium. What it doesn’t feel like is an industrial shed in outer Sheffield, surrounded by mechanics’ yards and second hand tyre outlets. There’s assorted breweriana scattered about the place, a wood burning stove, and a dedicated Stammtisch next to the bar. The commitment to serving each beer in the right style of glass, with a perfect head of foam, was something else that won us over. It helps, we guess, that the owners are on site, working the bar, and working the floor.
Honourable mentions: Lost & Grounded, of course, which is our local and where we end up on most Friday nights; and the Dogma taproom in Belgrade, Serbia, where we spent a very pleasant afternoon lounging in the sun.
Our favourite beer writer or blogger of 2025
Alex who writes Pub Vignettes at Substack is someone whose work we find consistently enjoyable. His short, punchy reviews of three pubs, usually in the same town, seem to get to the essence of blogging, somehow, feeling immediate and sharply observed.
Honourable mentions: All the contributors and editors at Pellicle represent the best in British beer and pub writing in 2025. Many of those writers also have their own blogs and newsletters which are also worth checking out.
For a running commentary on the best beers we drink throughout the year, sign up to support us on Patreon. We post a round-up most weeks, including hints about beer-of-the-year contenders.
