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Tyne gentlemen please
The first of three visits to England this summer happened in mid-July when work landed me in Newcastle-upon-Tyne for a few days. I'd never been, so was very happy to be packed off. It's a tidy little...
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Britscraft
Yes yes: I know I covered a gose in my previous post about pub-hopping in Newcastle, but for this concluding piece we're going even deeper into the craft.Where better to start than BrewDog? A branch of...
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Give 'em the works
"The Landscape of Beer" is the topic of this month's Session, hosted by the Active Brewer blog. Allen wants us to look at the way beer is now and how it's likely to change over the coming years. With...
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Scenes from an Irish summer
Time to draw another line under the last few month's of random new Irish beers and put together an anthology post on what I think of them.To start we go way back to early June and the Killarney Beer...
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A lonely voyageur
Well this was a pleasant surprise: Roukine, a Québécois red IPA by Brasseurs du Nord, delivered to my missus by Máire from 57 The Headline. It's a foxy red brown colour in the glass topped by an ivory...
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In the belly of the beast
Until Derek pointed it out, I hadn't noticed that 2015 was the third year in a row that the Beoir AGM was held in the south-east. As the chief organiser of the annual think-in-with-the-drink-in I...
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Three letters that mean nothing
IPA, eh? What's that all about? I'm sure I'm not the only one to have noticed that this so-called beer style has come to be less and less specific over the last ten years if, indeed, it ever really...
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Out of the darkness
Rooting around at the back of the beer fridge turned up this pair. I don't know how long they've been sitting there but a couple of years at least. Both are tripels from the Westoek brewery in...
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Mersey treat
I was given a hotel voucher for Christmas and, after performing full due diligence on the opportunities it offered, decided that one night in Liverpool was the most economical way to make use of it. So...
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Pre-festival festivals
The biggest event in the Irish beer calendar kicks off this evening at the RDS in Dublin. I understand there'll be about 40 Irish breweries at the 2015 Irish Craft Beer Festival and we've been promised...
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Meet the Hebrews
Tom is a beer geek from Israel, currently seconded to a work project in Dublin. Back in June he offered to bring some beers over from home for a tasting. A group of us got together in the Bull &...
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Mission creep
I'd only gone to DrinkStore for one specific beer but forgot it had been a few weeks since I was last in, so there was lots of new and previously untasted Irish beer to try. The purpose of my visit was...
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Put your back into it
A slightly uncomfortable topic has been set for September's Session, though I'm sure plenty of other regular participants will have no problem with it. Natasha from Meta CookBook has called it "The...
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Howls aplenty
I suspect that Her Majesty may not have paid a visit to the royal lock-up in Hackney Wick for some time. That's not to say Queen's Yard hasn't seen a lick of paint recently: au contraire, the entire...
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Firkin Americans
It had been five years since I last graced the Great British Beer Festival, back when it was still in the hangar-like space of Earls Court. It has returned to the more modest venue of Olympia now and,...
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Olympia and beyond!
In yesterday's post from the 2015 Great British Beer Festival I mentioned my short must-drink list. In fact there was only one other item on it: Harvey's Sussex Dark Mild, a beer I have inexplicably...
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London crawling
The thing about London is I'm almost always in a hurry, going to a particular event and trying to squeeze a few beers in around it. The day after the 2015 Great British Beer Festival was different,...
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Relentless
The Irish Craft Beer Festival came and went in late August, and almost ended me. Though the festival was shrunk to two evenings and a day, and I spent a significant amount of time serving beer as well...
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Quick impressions
I'm finding it tough to impose any sort of order on the wide scattering of new beers I tasted (and occasionally more than tasted) at the Irish Craft Beer Festival at the RDS last month. For this post...
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Last round
A final loop around the RDS at the Irish Craft Beer Festival, looking at new, and new-ish, breweries.Only one brand was completely unknown to me: Hope. A brewery-restaurant is in the planning for north...
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