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Cry wolf
I've seen ads for Lupulus from Les 3 Fourquets in many a Belgian pub, its sad grey wolf pup staring balefully at the drinker. The brewery designates it as an "Ardennes Tripple" [sic] leaving me...
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Berried deep
Hello My Name Is Vladimir is the first of BrewDog's Hello My Name Is... series to have come my way. They're double IPAs with a berry addition and this time it's limonnik doing the honours.It's a fairly...
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Topin' all hours
I reaped a boon from Richard's most recent trip to the US, and from his fondness for super-fresh hop-forward American beers, and from his willingness to open them within my reach.Day Tripper comes from...
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Finalmente!
There are many epithets that one can attach to Mr Mick Wallace, though one of the ones he made his name on was "Italophile". Enamoured of the Italian way of life on returning from the 1990 World Cup,...
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King for a day
King Street is a cobbled stretch of central Bristol, linking two of the waterfronts in this inland maritime city. It is exceedingly well-pubbed, enough to warrant a mention in the opening chapter of...
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Traditional matters
From my previous post you might get the impression that British beer these days is all new world hops, weird ingredients and unfamiliar styles, but that's far from the case. On my few days in Bristol...
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Down with the kids
The strand of British brewing I'm looking at in the last of my posts from Bristol is the one that mostly ignores what has gone before, taking its cues from the brewing practices of other places.The...
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The A game
Back in June, Molson Coors Ireland held another one of their beer events for the trade and meeja at House on Leeson Street. This time, the focus was on Blue Moon and they had brought over Blue Moon's...
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House of Orange
I'm a complete sucker for new-wave German hops, mainly because we pretty much never see them here. But I did genuinely enjoy the handful of beers I've had using them, and Mandarina Bavaria particularly...
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No rest for the ticker
Irish Craft Beer Week is upon us once more as the nation girds its collective loins for the craftquake that is the Irish Craft Beer and Cider Festival, now in its fourth year at the RDS Industries...
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More pours
Day two of catching up on Ireland's recent new and special release beers in honour of Irish Craft Beer Week 2014.Usually ahead of the game for such things, The Norseman in Dublin was an early adopter...
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Hitting the bottle
That's enough bothering the bar staff for now. Irish Craft Beer Week continues with some new bottled beer brands.Cloughmore is a label owned by Noreast, a veteran importer of fancy foreign beers, more...
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Taking justice on the chin
Two more brand new bottled brands to finish off this week's epic crawl of Irish beers.Another new brewery has opened in the Dublin hinterland in the form of Kelly's Mountain in Clane, Co. Kildare and...
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Smaak in the head
I was a little apprehensive when I first saw Breandán's choice of topic show up on Jay's list of once and future Sessions. "My First Belgian". What was my first Belgian? There has to have been one, and...
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Ryed off into the sunset
It's Saturday, the Irish Craft Beer and Cider Festival is on at the RDS, everyone is either anticipating going or trying desperately to forget they were there. The point is this: nobody is reading beer...
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A summer's lease
This bottle of Edinburgh brewery Top Out's Staple pale ale arrived via Steve and I opened it at the tail end of a long hot Sunday of back-breaking physical labour.It's a sober name for a...
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Journey's end
From far off Michigan, from Oregon and the eastern plains of Colorado, American draught beer comes to Dublin. It's a bit silly when you think about it: there was beer here already. But it would be...
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El ratolí que va rugir
#dammisdead squeals the label on the back of my dinky bottle of Revolution IPA, a product of Molta Birra in Girona, on the doorstep of the Catalan brewing giant. It's a 6.5% ABV pale amber beer, one I...
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Knockabout fun
There's a story being told on the labels of these beers from Scheldebrouwerij but I'm damned if I know what it is. The leaf-clad cavemen look to be up to some sort of crazy scheme, in proper Belgian...
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Job done
I was expecting something hot and heavy from St. Austell's Big Job, imagining it as a kind of tramps' edition of their Proper Job IPA. But it's really quite classy, despite the name. A slight haze is...
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