Clik here to view.
Round Ireland with a thirst, part 4: Trim
On the Saturday before last, the Royal County homebrew club of Meath joined in combat against the Wee County homebrew club of Louth. The battle took place at the Brú Brewery in Trim and the chosen...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Round Ireland with a thirst, part 5: Kilkenny
Journey's end is Kilkenny, one of my favourite cities in Ireland, if you can avoid the stag and hen parties. A large part of town is still occupied by the defunct Smithwick's brewery (last seen in this...
View ArticleClik here to view.
It's pouring
On an appropriately dark and stormy August afternoon in Dublin, The Beer Market opened the doors on its Cloudwater tap takeover. I've had mixed experiences of the Manchester brewery of the moment: some...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Meine kleine Steine
Stone Brewing Company's outpost in Germany has generated a lot more hot air and newsprint than actual beer since it was announced in 2014. The brewery's first releases arrived in Ireland earlier this...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Exotic tastes
A couple of random Irish IPAs today, from different corners of the island."a refreshing Pinacolada beer" is the promise Farmageddon makes on the label of its Gorse India Pale Ale, an effect achieved by...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Get into the party mood
There's a new festival on the beer calendar this week. Franciscan Well has appropriated the moniker "The Great Irish Beer Festival" (last seen here) and is using it for a new gig taking place in Cork...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Wickla!
I left off yesterday's post on the Irish Craft Beer Festival with one from Wicklow Wolf. This post delves deeper into the garden county to find more of what its growing number of brewers are turning...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A race to the bottom
I've been taking a vaguely geographical approach to recounting the beers at the 2016 Irish Craft Beer Festival this week. Starting in Dublin on Monday, however, I'd got no further than Wicklow by the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ballsbridge and beyond
Wrapping up the reviews of 2016's Irish Craft Beer Festival at the RDS, today it's beers from Connacht and Ulster, as well as blow-ins and break-outs.I did a short spell tending the pumps at N17 where...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Scoop creep
Decent dark lager for home drinking can be hard come by in these parts. Dublin's Czech pubs are a handy source of draught Herold Tmavé, which goes a long way towards scratching the itch, but you can...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Sweet Georgia without the Brown
US college football came to Dublin a few weeks ago, involving a full calendar of American festivities. Rye River opted to make at least one of the teams feel at home by shipping in a load of beers from...
View ArticleClik here to view.
No fear
Today I'm getting back amongst the bottled beers of Wexford Town's YellowBelly Brewery. There's a broadly sour and farmhouse theme to this set which arrived simultaneously a couple of months ago.A gose...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Try try again
Persistence Brewing Company is the latest addition to Dublin's beer offer, its taps confined to that cluster of trendy bars along Fade Street including Idlewild, Drury Buildings and that one above...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Running on fumes
A random pick from the back of the beer fridge: La Fumette by Belgian brewery MilleVertus. It's an ambrée, which is a style that I don't recall ever liking an example of, but the bonus is it's fumée as...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Who you calling a homophone?
Our host for the October Session is Derek from Ramblings of a Beer Runner and the topic he has chosen is gose, the salty native beer style of Leipzig which, having survived near-extinction, has gone on...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Hello from the other side
Normality and routine returns today after three weeks on holiday from the daily grind. I spent most of it bimbling around the USA but you'll have to wait a few weeks while I sort my stack of beer notes...
View ArticleClik here to view.
New lager for old
Back in the spring I read with interest on a number of sources about a project Carlsberg were doing to recreate an old recipe from their archives. They'd started by isolating the yeast from a lager...
View ArticleClik here to view.
When Friday comes
Friday evening. Work done for the week. Three friends have an event to attend elsewhere in town later but they meet in The Beer Market. It's a nicely flexible drinking space: you can session on pints...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A cool reception
Each year the European Beer Consumers Union holds a reception in Brussels for MEPs and the drinks industry, just to remind them of us, the humble consumers, and our concerns over issues like...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Belgium's smallest pub crawl
A mid-afternoon flight home meant I only had time for a handful of beers on my last day in Brussels. I began by nipping across to Cantillon, to restock my cellar with lovely lovely gueuze. There was...
View Article