A Country for Ale Aficionados – The Top 20 Best-Rated British Beers

The United Kingdom is indeed a country of ale. Last year’s top 20 stats only include one bottom-fermented beer. The best-rated and the most popular British beers nowadays are mostly IPAs.

Pub culture is a seriously recognized part of British cultural heritage, and the UK is a leading beer brewing country, root and branch. 

The most common beer styles that the UK is known for are all top-fermented cask beer styles, also known as real ales. Bitter, mild, brown and old ale are the most usual ones, but also IPAs, stouts and porters come originally from this island state.

England has a broad variety of different kinds of ales. Northern Ireland has its red ales, Scotland has its strong Scotch ales, and Wales is said to be going through a renaissance by what comes to a rise of hand-craft breweries. Each country has its long history of brewing. 

The UK is a country for ale aficionados, for sure.

The Best-Rated British Beers in 2021

In the statistics of last year’s best-rated beers are only taken into account those beers that do have more than 50 ratings in Pint Please. The average ratings on the top 20 vary from 4.40 to 3.82. 

Undoubtedly, hazy imperial IPAs (8%) are heading the stats. Verdant Brewing Company from England has in total five beers on the list, and to crown this all, the brewery has hogged the four best places at the head of the list.

According to the ratings of the Pint Please community, the best beers from the UK are Verdant’s Putty and Fruit Car Sight Exhibition, both Double IPAs with an admirable average rating of 4.20. 

Correspondingly, both beers have placings on the head of the list of all the best-rated beers of 2021. 

Putty is a golden-yellow and cloudy, very strong-hopped and fruity DIPA with pine notes. Fruit Car Sight Exhibition is as cloudy as Putty but instead of the pine, its aromas come more likely from grapefruit and other citruses.

In second place, with an average rating of 4.01, there is another eight per cent DIPA called Five A.M. This time the characteristic taste comes from orange, though the basics are still the same. Why change a proven recipe?

The descriptions are very typical, but that must be the reason why Verdant DIPAs fit perfectly to the hoped-for taste profile. No hokey-pokey, just simple beer magic!

In total, there are fourteen English, one Welsh and five Scottish beers on the list.

The Most Popular British Beers in 2021

Compared to the best-rated beers, the top 20 list of the most popular beers seems quite different. No more Verdant DIPAs on this list, I swear. This time the conqueror of the top list is BrewDog, which nowadays is a multinational brewery and pub chain, but originally from Ellon, Scotland.

Well, who wouldn’t have tasted Punk IPA? This post modern classic was born in the mid 2000’s. Punk IPA, nowadays a flagship, was BrewDog’s first product, which kick-started the whole company. Brewed with Chinook, Ahtanum, Amarillo, Cascade, Simcoe and Nelson Sauvin hops, its taste has notes from grapefruit, pineapple and lychee. 

Hazy Jane, instead, is a New England style IPA, whose juicy taste comes from pineapple, mango and stone-fruit, and has also a hint of tangerine. This five per cent NEIPA is brewed with wheat and oats for its smooth haziness.

On the third place, there is an English product, Hobgoblin IPA, brewed by Wychwood (owned by Marston’s) from Witney, Oxfordshire. Compared to the brewery’s flagship, Hobgoblin brown ale, this IPA is a refreshingly bitter cousin. 

Hobgoblin IPA was created in 2017, and the following year it was designated as the Best English Style IPA in the World in World Beer Awards. This copper-red malty and full-bodied IPA has both citrus as caramel notes in its taste.

In total, there are eight Scottish and twelve English beers on the list.