With the Fyne Ales team back in the brewery this week, we decided to take a moment to look back on our favourite beers from 2021, choosing from the 40-plus beers we brewed AND all the other beers from other breweries we enjoyed over the year – check out our beery highlights from last year and share your favourite brews with us over on social media!

Jamie Delap, Managing Director

Favourite Fyne Ales Beer of 2021: Foundations IPA
Foundations is one of those beers that isn’t just a great pint, but also tells a great story – cask beer is not only an integral part of Fyne Ales but an important part of the British brewing tradition, so brewing a thoroughly modern style of beer for cask, using only British hops and malts, to mark our 20th birthay felt like the perfect hat tip to what we set out to achieve when we started brewing in 2001 and where we are now as a brewery. Drinking it with the team in The Laurieston in Glasgow to celebrate was a highlight of 2021.

Favourite Other Beer of 2021: DEYA – Steady Rolling Man
In my eyes, few beers achieved ‘modern classic’ status as quickly as DEYA’s Steady Rolling Man – it ticks all the boxes – easy-drinking, well made, uncomplicated but undeniably delicious in can or or on draught. A great beer to enjoy while sitting in a garden with friends on a sunny day, enjoying good chat. [Photo courtesy of DEYA]

ORDER STEADY ROLLING MAN FROM DEYA

Malcolm Downie, Head Brewer

Favourite Fyne Ales Beer of 2021: Everyone Loves Cashmere
If you read our blogs regularly you’ll know how much I love Cashmere hops – in a year when we only brewed a few beers in our Everyone Loves series, I’m so pleased we were able to rebrew the Cashmere version and showcase these beautiful, delicate hops again. Lovely beer.

Favourite Other Beer of 2021: Braybrooke – Spalt Select Pils
It was definitely lager weather this summer and of the many great lagers being brewed in the UK at the moment, Braybrooke made my favourite . Their pils with Spalt hops was close to perfect for me – clean, dry, herbacious and unapologetically bitter in the finish.

SHOP BRAYBROOKE BEER

Iain Smith, Marketing Manager

Favourite Fyne Ales Beer of 2021: Red Flag
I think as a brewery we make really good red ales and Red IPAs and I wish we got the chance to make them more often – luckily, thanks to an invitation from Elusive to be part of their annual Collabageddon, we were able to team up with Manchester’s Runaway and brew a really good one in 2021! Red Flag has everything you could want in red IPA – a big chewy caramel malt backbone with dank, piney hops on top.

Favourite Other Beer of 2021: Nethergate – Stour Valley Gold
I was lucky enough to drink a lot of good beer in 2021, so I’m going to give a lot of honorable mentions – Lost & Grounded’s Newstalgic, Anspach & Hobday’s London Black, Rock Leopard’s Taking On The World and a bottle of Logsdon Spontane Wilde 2017 from my stash that was mind-blowingly good.

My winner is a simple, well-made, well-kept pint of cask. Nethergate’s Stour Valley Gold might be a fairly unassuming beer, but drinking it in a sunny beer garden in my hometown with my family and baby son was the absolute perfect way to spend a hot afternoon back in July.

Pawel Nowak, Head of Origins Brewing

Favourite Fyne Ales Beer of 2021: Origins Brewing – Whinstone
I’m really proud of all four of the Origins releases we put out in 2021 – I think the overall standard of the beers continues to get better each year, but I’ve chosen Whinstone for its beautiful vanilla character from the oak barrel and coconut notes from gorse flowers we foraged from the glen.

Favourite Other Beer of 2021: Dois Corvos – Raspberry Jam
On a recent visit to Lisbon I enjoyed Raspberry Jam from Dois Corvos – it’s a raspberry barrel-aged sour with lacto and Brett and they really nailed the balance of fruit and wild yeast character. A really great beer shared with great company of my Portuguese friends. [Photo courtesy of Dois Corvos]

Tom Hunter, Sales

Favourite Fyne Ales Beer of 2021: New Skies
When I first found out we were brewing with surplus breadcrumbs I was a little apprehensive, but New Skies turned out to be my favourite Fyne Ales beer of the year – it’s a crushable, soft and juicy pale ale and it’s become my go to beer for taking home and filling the fridge. Plus, it’s for a great cause too!

SHOP NEW SKIES – FYNE ALES ONLINE SHOP

Favourite Other Beer of 2021: Newbarns – Hana Helles
Someone said that Hana was Newbarns’ Hana was a bit of a tribute to Augustiner Edelstoff and I can confirm it’s a very fitting homage to one of the all-time great German lagers. We kept cans in stock in our brewery shop throughout the late summer and I’m pretty sure the Fyne Ales team drank most of them.

SHOP NEWBARNS BEER

Yvonne Wernlein, Technical Brewer

Favourite Fyne Ales Beer of 2021: Fyne Lager
My favourite Fyne Ales beer is the same this year as it was last year and the same as it will be next year and every year – Fyne Lager is like coming home for me, it’s the best of both worlds, a lovely lager with a subtle fruity hoppiness.

Favourite Other Beer of 2021: Duration – Shifting Baseline
Durations’ Shifting Baseline is a brilliant drinking beer – a very pleasant and fruity aroma, amazing hop and malt balance, perfect carbonation, it’s just a great all-rounder by our friends from Norfolk. [Photo courtesy of Duration]

SHOP DURATION BREWING BEER

Archie McInnes, Drayman

Favourite Fyne Ales Beer of 2021: Moscatel Barrel-Aged Mills & Hills
Everyone at Fyne Ales knows I love stouts and the two barrel-aged versions of Mills & Hills we released this year were among the best we’ve ever done. Between the Moscatel and the Cognac versions, I slightly prefer the Moscatel, but they’re both great.

SHOP MILLS & HILLS – FYNE ALES ONLINE SHOP

Favourite Other Beer of 2021: Northern Monk – Mangoes On With Faith
You can’t drink 11% stouts all the time, can you? I’ve tried a lot of different beers from supermarkets over the past couple of years – drinking at home through the multiple lockdowns had me exploring what independent breweries were offering in supermarkets and I think the best of the bunch is the Northern Monk mango pale ale from Morrisons – it’s really fruity, really nice.

SHOP NORTHERN MONK @ MORRISONS