In our first ever Winter Special, we’re broadcasting live from Hop Burns & Black again, and this time it’s all about New Zealand.

We feature and taste 5 beers with a live audience and we chat to Todd from the NZ Collective and Stu from the Yeastie Boys.

On the menu for tonight’s special was ‘Pot Kettle Black’ & ‘PBK Remix 2015 Dark Matta’ from the Yeastie Boys, ‘Oyster Stout’ from Three Boys, ‘Fresh Hopped Black the RIPA’ from Renaissance and the indulgent ‘iStout’ from 8 Wired.

In our live #hoptopic we decide once and for all which city is the best beery city in the UK.

Massive thanks to the guys at Hop Burns & Black for hosting us again to Todd & Stu for giving up their time and to the live audience who we’re pretty sure half of them had no idea what was going on!

It’s Beer O’clock!

Image courtesy of Hop Burns & Black

Beer Nation brings together the UK beer podcasting community for a collaboration broadcast and takes a look at the state of the beer nation in 2015.

Hosted by our very own Mark and Sophie from The Beertalkers, we also welcome to the table Roland from Steve & Roland’s Beer Podcast, Daniel from the Original Gravity podcast, Sam from The Beertalkers and Steve from the Beer O’clock Show.

In this special show we look back at the highs and lows of the beer nation over the past 12 months and discuss our favourite beers, breweries and events.

For good measure, we also manage to squeeze in a cheeky little review of Magic Rock’s ‘Salty Kiss’.

It’s Beer (Nation) O’clock!

It’s the end of another season and we say goodbye with a beer that’s becoming our staple end of year finisher, the Fuller’s Vintage Ale (2014 edition).

We take a look back over what has been our biggest season ever and chat about our highlights of the season. We also talk Golden Pints for which we’re very grateful to all of you who have nominated us in your posts.

The last of the coveted 2015 big boxes of nothing is awarded not once but twice in the #prizelessprize and we take a look forward to season 9.

As always, a massive thank you to all of the breweries who have supported us this season, all of the guests (both live and interviewed) and to you all, the listeners for sticking with us.

It’s  Beer O’clock!

Bonus content: for all you #prizelessprize fans check out the end of year montage of all of this year’s winners here

This week we welcome Mr & Mrs Beer Snob, Wayne & Janice Dunne back to the Beer O’clock studios to review Galway Bay’s barrel aged imperial stout ‘Two Hundred Fathoms’.

We catch up on all the news, give away another first time #prizelessprize and there’s a bonus interview with Caroline Hennessy, author of the Irish craft beer and food book, Sláinte.

If that wasn’t enough, Mark also gets a bit ranty in #hoptopic.

It’s Beer O’Clock!

‘Sláinte’ can be purchased for worldwide delivery here and Caroline’s website can be found here

This week we feature Wild Beer’s ‘Sourdough’ with guest reviewer Ben McCormick. Ben will be know to many on Twitter as the originator of the beer advent calendar, and this beer features part of his calendar for this year. We also chat to Ben about the rise in popularity of the ‘beer advent calendar’ and this sparks a discussion as part of this week’s #hoptopic.

We give away another great big box of nothing in the #prizelessprize and there’s a fascinating interview with hop farmer Ali Capper from Stocks Farm.

It’s Beer O’clock!