We're looking for the best chippy in County Durham and we need your help
The Northern Echo's Best Chippy award launches again today and we're looking for help from our readers to find out who takes the crown in Darlington and County Durham.
Last year, we were inundated with voting slips from across the region as fans were desperate to share their love for their favourite takeaway treat.
Highly popular Cockerton Fisheries, on Woodland Road, clinched the title in 2024, with owner Sam Todd saying she was 'delighted' at the news.
The chippy, which has been in Sam's family for more than 30 years, is a staple in Cockerton Village with the restaurant often going 'above and beyond' for their customers.
"It's all down to hard work and looking after our customers. And the staff are amazing. We go out of our way for our customers.
"We have lots of regulars and have a delivery service for elderly people. Since Covid, I have carried on with that. On a Saturday, I have 20 to 30 people that I deliver to and take the food into their house - they just love it.
"It's all about looking after and doing that extra for our customers - as well as having the best fish and chips."
Nominations open today (May 19), with readers encouraged to vote for their favourite online.
Once nominations close, votes will be counted, and a shortlist of the top ten will be released.
We'll then release features on each of the nominees, alongside voting slips where you can vote for your favourite.
Once the votes have been totted up, we'll reveal the winner and a special feature will be published online and in print.
You can submit your nominations here, or find the QR code in the paper.
Nominations close Sunday, May 25.
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Quantity: (12) 12-ounce cans | Price: $30 and up | Tasting Notes: Sour, fruit-forward If you're looking to eat some bold, flavorful foods and you want a perfect counterbalance in a beverage, reach for Go Brewing's New School Sour Berry NA beer. One of our testers said of this pink-colored brew: 'This would be great for a warm summer night at a BBQ. I think the sour could nicely play off the sweetness of the BBQ.' I couldn't agree more. Made with water, barley, hops, yeast, and juice from blueberries and strawberries, it's a well balanced and tasty sour beer. The sourness is potent enough here that at first some people might even think this beer has turned rancid. Live with it for a second, let your tastebuds calm down, and then begin to notice that behind that sharp, tart leading edge are hops and malt to balance it out. Amazon Coors Edge Non-Alcoholic Brew Forbes Vetted Forbes Vetted ratings are based on thorough evaluations by our editorial team to help you choose the best products with confidence. Quantity: (5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 24, 30) 12-ounce bottles | Price: $11 and up | Tasting Notes: Mild hops, light sweetness There was little division among the Forbes Vetted tasting panel when it came to this brew. One Vetted staffer said of Coors Edge: 'This one is surprisingly refreshing. It has a sweet taste that's very, very light. It's not overpowering, and it's not too sickly sweet. It's very lovely.' She was shocked when she found out this wasn't the work of craft brew outfit, but a mega-brewery. Another praised the vivacious carbonation that led to an exciting mouthfeel. A 12-ounce serving of Coors Edge contains 41 calories, thus us highlighting it as a low calorie NA beer. 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They may still have fans elsewhere, so we included some tasting notes in case you want to check the mout. Athletic Brewing All Out Extra Dark (3.25/5 stars): This brew smells great with roasted chocolate notes, but most tasters found it a bit too bitter for the category. Athletic Brewing Wit's Peak Belgian Style White (3/5 stars): While this is a refreshing brew with a bit of citrus to it, the mouthfeel is too thin for a wheat beer; some found it watery. Best Day Brewing Hazy IPA (3/5 stars): While Best Day's Hazy IPA certainly looks right and smells good, it just doesn't have enough flavor compared to others we tried. Hedlum Grapefruit Love (3/5 stars): Grapefruit Love tastes more like a lemonade than a beer. It's not bad, but may not be a fit for what your palate will be expecting. Lagunitas IPNA (3.5/5 stars): This one was divisive. I personally love this brew, and think it fits the IPA category well, but many other tasters described it as medicinal and unpleasant. Partake Brewing Pils (2.75/5 stars): Ironically, this pilsner brew almost had too much flavor for many tasters, being more bitter than they felt suited a pilsner. Stella Artois 0.0 (3.25/5 stars): Another divisive brew, the feelings here were split between true beer flavor and bitterness without balance. Many did agree it tasted close to Stella once they knew the brewery, though. Untitled Art Grapefruit Radler (3/5 stars): This radler was so fruity that it tastes more like juice than beer. This is a brew some people will love, others will pour out. Woodland Farms Ruby Sour (3/5 stars): There's real fruit added to this beer, and you can tell upon sipping it. The tart finish will be welcomed by some, but others on our panel found it to be overpowering. How We Tested The Best Non-Alcoholic Beers Let's take a moment to fully acknowledge that taste is subjective: You may loathe a beer I love, and love a beer I'd prefer to never sip again. We enlisted a taste-test panel of several people to arrive our top picks for each category of NA beer. Here's how we tested: We conducted a blind taste with 26 brews to find the best non-alcoholic beers. Rebecca Isaacs for Forbes I considered a baseline of what an alcoholic beer should taste like, which is a balance of malt and hops tied together by yeast, and with a slight touch of heat from the alcohol (there are caveats based on category, as well as ingredients like added fruit). NA beers have extra work to do to tease flavor out of their grain bill, hops and yeast to compensate for the near total absence of alcohol. Tasters considered this while sampling beers. I established different categories of beer types to consider popular NA brews. These categories included IPA, hazy IPA, Pilsner, lager, stout, wheat, sour and low-calorie. I spoke to experts in the non-alcoholic beverage world to gain their insights into what makes the best non-alcoholic beers. I also sought suggestions of specific breweries and brews to include in our tests. I did extensive research on popular non-alcoholic breweries and identified which of their NA beers might best fit into each slot described above. I secured beers from at least three breweries that fit into each category and then gathered our panel. Each beer was served chilled to approximately 40 degrees Fahrenheit in a clear cup labeled simply 1, 2 or 3—only I knew which beer was in which cup. The panelists spent over three hours sipping NA beers and leaving detailed notes on each tasting experience, cleansing palates in between tasting with crackers and water. I compiled all of the notes and ratings into one document and established winners (and in many cases runners-up) based on averaging ratings and on the praise or criticism of each beer. Why Trust Forbes Vetted The Forbes Vetted staff has extensive experience testing and reviewing the best non-alcoholic drinks, and we brought the same level of scrutiny to testing the best non-alcoholic beers as we do to all of our product evaluations. We spoke with three experts and pored over NA beer offerings to find 26 to test. Rebecca Isaacs for Forbes Forbes Vetted staff writer Steven John wrote this article. Not only has John worked as a journalist for more than 13 years, he is a hobbyist beer brewer, ran a (now defunct) beer review website for many years and has written scores of articles covering the food and beverage space. This article was edited by Anna Perling, the senior reviews editor with Forbes Vetted. Perling has years of experience testing the best non-alcoholic drinks. A team of Forbes Vetted staffers convened to conduct a blind taste test of nearly 30 different NA beers. They shared extensive notes and ratings for every brew they sipped. 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It's a simple sentiment, but it's a truth for this NA beverage category—especially now that so many delicious brews are available after decades during which only a few subpar NA beers were available. Here are the factors to consider when looking for the best non-alcoholic beers, across a range of categories. Consider factors like taste, aroma, style and more when choosing the best non-alcoholic beers for ... More you. Rebecca Isaacs for Forbes Appearance Assuming you enjoy your beers in a glass, the first sensory experience you will have with an NA beer is visual. Does the beer meet your expectations in terms of color, clarity and head retention? An NA stout should be dark and hold that foam. A hazy IPA should be cloudy, as should a non-alcoholic wheat beer. Pilsners and lagers should golden. A beer's appearance should match its category. Aroma You can tell a lot about a beer, non-alcoholic or regular, by its scent. Do you detect those wonderfully bitter hops in the aroma? Is there a citrus note? Or maybe pine forest? As with appearance, the aroma of an NA beer should match your expectations, with IPAs smelling hoppy, stouts smelling of chocolate, toast or coffee, and so on. Mouthfeel Mouthfeel, in the context of NA beer and alcoholic beer, too, refers to the physical sensations a beer creates in your mouth and on your tongue. That goes beyond just taste and aroma. It's the sensation of the carbonation, and the thick and creamy or light and smooth feel of the liquid. It's also how the finish lingers on your tongue and palate after each sip. Taste The way an NA beer tastes is what matters the most (given, of course, that taste depends on the drinker). That hazy IPA needs to be citrus fruit-forward, that IPA hoppy, that stout robust and toasty, and so forth. There's latitude in each style of beer as long as certain tasting note boxes are checked. The best NA beers will match the taste of a beer style even without alcohol. 'Not all beer styles translate equally well to NA,' says Campion. 'Alcohol contributes significantly to aroma, mouthfeel and flavor perception. Without it, certain styles often fall flat.' That certainly wasn't the case with our winners and runners-up. Beer Style As with regular beer, when choosing your favorite non-alcoholic beer, reach for the kind of brew you want to drink given the season, food pairing or the occasion. 'As NA alternatives have come along, there are a wide variety of NA equivalents to almost every style of beer,' says Simm. 'There are some great NA IPAs and darker beers which are becoming more popular.' Many beers will list suggested pairings or tasting notes; we've included these in our guide as well. What Are Some Suggestions For Non-Alcoholic Beer Food Pairings? Pale ales and IPAs 'pair well with grilled foods, tacos, spicy dishes and fried foods, where the bitterness helps cut through richness and elevate flavor,' says Campion. He adds that NA stouts and porters have a 'roasted malt character—think coffee, chocolate, dark toast' that adds body and complexity, creating a satisfying experience. He recommends enjoying these types of beers with 'BBQ, smoked meats or desserts like chocolate cake.' Which Is The Best Non-Alcoholic Beer? In our tests, Athletic Brewing Run Wild IPA won as the best non-alcoholic IPA, while the Sam Adams Golden Lager took the prize for best non-alcoholic lager. We included picks for a range of categories as well as tasting notes so you can choose the best non-alcoholic beer for your palate, mood or meal. Why Has Non-Alcoholic Beer Gotten So Much Better? Non-alcoholic beer is now taken seriously as a category instead of being treated as an afterthought, which has helped improve NA beer offerings. 'Mass produced non-alcoholic beers often taste quite sweet, either because the lack of alcohol makes the taste of these residual sugars more prominent, or the addition of ingredients to improve mouthfeel,' says Simm. While some large breweries do offer good NA brews, often it's smaller craft breweries focused on non-alcoholic beers that truly nail each style.
