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A bigger Belly
Wexford's YellowBelly brewery descended on 57 The Headline for a tap takeover in early November, bringing as broad a selection as I've seen from one brewery at one of these events. And all, of course,...
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Bang for your buck
Rye River's Crafty Brewing Company American Style Pale Wheat AleĀ arrived in Lidl to much fanfare (and extensive shortages) in late October. I finally tracked some down in the Terenure branch, handed...
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They don't know Jack
I had thought that 2016 was going to be the year of Dublin brewing but sadly there hasn't been the boom I anticipated. It's great that Hope is now in full production in Donaghmede, and the Stone...
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Random Belgians
After a few years off the roster, my wife is once again making regular work trips to Brussels. And, legend that she is, this has meant a bit of a beery bonanza for me. Here are some recent examples of...
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Golden, and "Golden"
Aldi held its annual Christmas tasting event for the meeja just before Halloween. There was nothing new or special on the beer front but an effort had been made with a few of the supermarket's...
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Trouble and Hope
The brewery names sound good together, and they do have a brewer in common, but otherwise this set is unrelated, demonstrating perhaps nothing more than the diversity of Irish beer these days.Trouble's...
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Numero tre
Yearthree of Quartiere in Fermento and the format switched again. What had previously been Dublin's Italian beer festival now rowed back on that side a little and added in some bonus content: Italian...
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Eating out
Dublin got a rather cool new addition to its food scene at the end of November. The long-neglected yard outside The Bernard Shaw pub in Portobello has been transformed into a four-days-a-week street...
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Has anyone seen Bill?
The biggest piece of Irish beer news for 2016 landed on 23rd November when Labour TD Alan Kelly published his private member's bill, the Intoxicating Liquor (Breweries and Distilleries) Bill 2016. If...
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Grand crew
I ran into the team from distributor Grand Cru Beers on two consecutive nights last month, both occasions based around their role as importer of Californian beer. (They do Colorado as well, but it's...
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Czech detective
A fairly regular chore on this blog -- which is essentially an index of beers -- is to try and figure out which beer I've actually just had, following a bar's creative efforts to call it something...
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Last dash
Time for my final round-up of miscellaneous Irish beer for 2016, all the stuff I found in the pubs and off licences of Dublin as the festive season started to bite.Galway Bay had been especially busy,...
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Highs and lows
I've been a big big fan of BrewDog's Aces series so far. Huge. So when the third in the set came my way I grabbed it without a second thought. This time it's posterboy Citra in the driving seat, and...
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Pulling the wool
I was very surprised when, among the beers my wife recently brought back from Brussels, was one bearing the mark of an Italian maker. It's still a little bit unusual to find non-Belgian beer in Belgium...
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Sour '16
The final post of the year brings the Golden Pints, beer blogging's annual personal awards, working to a template devised by Mark Dredge and Andy Mogg. Sour beers have played a major role in my...
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Herd mentality
The Bite food festival has become a regular feature of the run-up to Christmas in Dublin. It's held in the RDS in late November and there's always been something of interest beerwise at it. In 2016...
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Any port
Last time I was up north I acquired this pair in the supermarket. Sailor Town is a Belfast-based brand, implicitly referencing the city's docklands, though I'm reliably informed the brewing takes place...
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Quite an epiphany
I've been passing by the beers from Yorkshire brewery Vocation for ages now, for absolutely no good reason. The smart little cans are visually appealing and the beer is by all accounts quite good. I...
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Craft stops here
The Christmas break, for the second year running, was spent in rural Shropshire, not far from Shrewsbury. As someone who mostly experiences England's beer scene via the many fine blogs on the subject...
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Christmas leftovers
The last couple of beers from my Christmas gift stash today, starting with Hobsons ChaseĀ "whisky beer", resplendent in the usual smart Hobsons livery. The label explains that the brewery makes the wash...
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