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Brother beyond
The beers from Leeds's Northern Monk Brewing Company are imported to Ireland by the owners of Galway Bay Brewery so it's not surprising that they're a fairly regular feature of the guest taps across...
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All your birthdays at once
My blog turns 11 today, in this year of anniversaries. We've already had Carlow Brewing's 20th birthday beer, and I'm hoping we'll see one from The Porterhouse later as well. But even little tyke Eight...
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Feel the Gs
We don't have celebrity brewers in Ireland, for very good reasons, but if we did, Alex Lawes would be a candidate. From award-winning homebrew before winning awards for homebrew was really a thing, a...
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If we must
Doesn't this guy look classy? A half champagne bottle with painted-on calligraphy is making a statement about quality. And probably about price too, though this bottle of Ceriux Tostada was, I think,...
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Keep on truckin'
It's a slightly worrying topic for Session number 111. Oliver Gray is asking if any of us keyboard warriors are feeling less enthused about beer blogging these days. A glance at the tumbleweed blowing...
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Rapid fire
The special edition beers are fairly flying out of Carlow Brewing these days. They have two one-off series running in tandem and a moment of near-synchronicity between them meant that I got the latest...
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Blonde porter?
I don't know anything about Hertalse Poorter, though judging from the label it appears to be endorsed by Renaissance Donald Trump. I do know that, despite the name, it's not a porter, the paleness...
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Any given Friday
When I first visited The Open Gate Brewery, Diageo's Dublin brewpub, I expressed some concern about its lack of, well, openness: that you need to plan forward and book in advance to visit, and how this...
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What a con!
The National Homebrew Club held its second annual Brewing Convention in Dublin last month. El Presidente Thomas invited me to the after party in the neo-Gothic splendour of Smock Alley Theatre's...
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On a promise
I like Mosaic hops. I like Founders brewery. I'm... fairly indifferent to Golden Promise malt, but the joining up of the first two was enough to pique my interest when Founders Mosaic Promise rolled...
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Chasing Trouble
Lately I've been all over the southside, looking for Trouble. It started with the grand re-opening of Ranelagh's The Hill as a craft beer bar. I lived around the corner when I first moved to Dublin so...
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Black hops
There's a bit of a buzz going round about the "Discovery IPA Series" recently released by Black's of Kinsale. You'll find glowing reviews from Simon, Reuben and Wayne, so I was sufficiently convinced...
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The one and the zero
Digital IPA is the first Yeastie Boys beer I've ever had. It has been popping up in lots of places around Dublin lately and I caught up with it at Alfie Byrne's.5.7% ABV and a perfectly clear gold...
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Tastes of summer
It's bright and breezy brews today, for the longer, sunnier days. First up, Metalman Zwickel, the Waterford brewery's take on the German lager style. Though unfiltered it's not specially hazy and pours...
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The bottle of the Boyne
I can't believe it was all the way back in January when a bunch of us from Beoir visited Boyne Brewhouse. They were just getting ready to commission the packaging lines in the cavernous former car...
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Essex boy disappoints
In my experience, bottle-conditioned beers are far more likely to be over-carbonated than under. So I was surprised and quite dismayed when my bottle of Martyr IPA from Bishop Nick brewery in Braintree...
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Can do attitudes
Carla aka The Beer Babe is hosting The Session for June and the topic is a bit of an awkward one, being concerned with the secondary beer trade: the farmers, the marketers, the bottle-opener-makers....
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Planting the seeds
"I don't normally drink beer" is nearly the slogan of the Bloom Inn. You hear it a lot at the beer bars. The drinks tent at Bord Bia's annual garden festival in Phoenix Park is therefore probably a...
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A question of etiquette
What is the correct occasion for a bottle of Green's Golden Ale, left to you by a visitor and rotting in the back of the fridge for the previous eight months? I went for early on a Friday evening, when...
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Nordie boys
These two are the last of the haul from my most recent trip to Belfast, acquired in the excellent but poky Vineyard off licence on the Ormeau Road.My first impressions of Hillstown's beers are here,...
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