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On and off the hook
I had to go and look up why Red Hook describes its Audible Ale as "crushable". Seems they mean something like "sessionable": a beer to chug down and move on to another. At 4.7% ABV I can see the sense...
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Woof!
It's the sense of energy that is my lasting impression from visiting the BrewDog brewery: a relentless dynamism and a restless drive towards change and improvement in all things. I'm used to breweries...
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Not set in granite
It was a bit of a nostalgia trip to go back to Aberdeen as a guest of BrewDog in August. At the turn of the millennium I was a student in the city and while it's still the charmingly grey tangle of...
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Down to the River to play
The Pintwell blog is our host for The Session this month and Jeremy has asked us to write about how one's relationship with beer can be changed by making the stuff. As it happens, I visited a brewery...
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Last month's news
September was a bit of a busy one for me: three countries, two beer festivals, and lots of new beers. So you'll forgive me, I hope, if this blog is a little bit behind on what's been happening in Irish...
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Hops in the house
It goes without saying that there were pale ales aplenty at the Irish Craft Beer and Cider and Whiskey and Whatever You're Having Yourself Festival at the RDS last month. It's still the backbone of the...
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Just for the one
My guilty final post covers all the exhibitors at the Irish Craft Beer and Cider Festival from whom I only took the time to try one beer, even though all had plenty on offer.An exciting new beer from...
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Big in Nuremberg
Last month's bimble through Bavaria began in Nuremberg. The Dublin-Munich flight arrives nice and early, so you can be in the Franconian capital in time for a late lunch.The big local brewery is...
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The brewers about town
There are two breweries inside the walls of Nuremberg, both of which have pubs attached. Barfüsser occupies a very traditional-style cellar in the more commercial lower part of the city. The shining...
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The Great Houses
Bamberg! The Franconian city that had been top of my I Really Want To Go There And Drink Beer list for an embarassingly long time. It was raining when we arrived, raining as we made the long trek from...
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The Lesser Houses
The biggest surprise about Franconia, the thing that nobody tells you before you go, is that a fair bit of the beer is awful.Bamberg taught me this quite quickly. We were staying on the doorstep of the...
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Into the forest
I left you yesterday in the pleasant surrounds of the Achhörnla brewpub in Forchheim, choking down their massively less-than-pleasant lager. We're staying in Forchheim today to see what the town offers...
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Craftwork
That was a lot of lager and weissbier last week, eh? What about this wave of foreign styles that's destroying traditional German brewing and replacing it with the same sort of beer you get everywhere...
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Finishing up
We're not still in Germany are we? Who'd have thought there'd be so much beer? This post is for some of the odds and sods from my notebook that didn't fit in anywhere else.Novelty beer of the trip was...
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One lonely ex-pat
OK, one last beer from the Germany trip and then we're done. I'm giving it its own post as it was the only foreign beer I drank the whole time.Hop Back is from Tröeg's in Pennsylvania so is sort-of...
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He's off again
For the fourth year in a row, late September saw me at the Borefts beer festival, a two-day shindig held at the De Molen brewery in Bodegraven, South Holland, with beer from a hand-picked selection of...
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Corners of Europe
Borefts without a Thornbridge bar was strange -- I understand they're the first brewery in history to have turned down an invitation to the event -- but there were plenty of new English faces filling...
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And the rest
Last post from Borefts 2014, taking us to more far-flung parts of Europe. But we start where we left off, in Italy. Del Ducato's Violent Femme is a 4.2% ABV saison and is lemons all the way, from the...
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Tottenham hops
These five beers from north London's Beavertown brewery have been around in Ireland for a few months now, causing a bit of a stir with their distinctive branding and bold flavours.Neck Oil is a pale...
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Sunday stroll
This blog left the Borefts beer festival in Bodegraven last week, though there was one other beer I drank there which wasn't part of the line-up. Mirjam Red Ale is brewed at De Molen however, and...
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