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Brew trekked
Following on from Monday's saunter around the pubs of Utrecht, today I'm visiting two of the local brewpubs.The first is situated in the city centre, in the imposing Stadskasteel Oudaen. The building...
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Sour in all directions
Rounding off this week of posts from the Utrecht beer scene with a look at a handful of imported beers I tried.Of course, most of the beer imported into the Netherlands is from neighbouring Belgium and...
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Easter parade
I haven't done one of these Irish beer round-ups for a while and the note pile has been building. With the Easter weekend nearly over, here is a selection from breweries around the country and pubs...
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A few social beers
My Easter weekend began last Thursday afternoon with leaving work and heading straight for the Open Gate Brewery at St James's Gate. I'd been invited, with Will from 5 Lamps Brewery, to talk to staff...
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Well again
After a year's absence, I returned to Cork for the Easter Beer Festival at Franciscan Well last Saturday. I got an early bus down so had time to pop by Rising Sons to see if there was anything new on...
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Belgian purge
All going well I should be just back from Belgium when this gets posted. It'll take a while to process through what I found to drink there so while I'm stringing those words together I thought I'd...
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The naughty step
For over a year now The Fine Ale Countdown podcast has been assessing the relative merits of the world's beers, one at a time. Each beer gets a numerical score, resulting in a league table, and...
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The year DOT
My blog is 12 years old today. I'm using the opportunity to catch up with a local brewer whose beers I've been gathering notes on for months and am overdue actually doing a post about. The brewer is...
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The Nether darkness
Ask me about imperial stout in the Netherlands and I'll mention De Molen in the first sentence. Any sane person would. But the thrill of finding great strong dark beers from other Dutch breweries on my...
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Less than the meaning of life
Last year the War of the Eurolagers took a turn for the historical with both Carlsberg and Heineken looking to the past to secure themselves a prestige advantage over their rivals. The Danes unearthed...
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Beer on my computer
I think it's safe to say that a modern beer world without the Internet would be a very different place. Fashions change pretty quickly in beer, partly due to the short amount of time it takes to...
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Low country, high mileage
As usual, I'm a trip to Belgium behind on this blog. What I got up to at the weekend will feature later, but the next few posts are about a few days in Brussels and Leuven I spent a fortnight ago. The...
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In Belgium looking out
I'm perceiving a change in the beer scene around Brussels lately. Previously, the selection on offer was almost exclusively Belgian. I don't recall foreign beer featuring at all until the Delirium Café...
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The Zythos file
There's usually a very good social programme around the serious business of the EBCU's biannual meetings. At the end of the Friday session of the Spring meeting in Brussels last month we were joined by...
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The hazy, the crazy and the just plain weird
Belgian New England IPA: I never thought I'd see the day. But here we are. A couple were on show at the 2017 Zythos Beer Festival in Leuven. The first one I spotted was called Ceci NEIPA Une IPA and...
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Quirky Catalans
When I wrote about the Alltech Brews & Food Festival a few months ago, I mentioned that James from Alltech was kind enough to fill the gaps in my Barcelona Beer Company sampling with an armful of...
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Advance party
The Hop City festival took place in Leeds at Easter. As part of the promotional run-up, host brewer Northern Monk brewed a collaboration beer with Cloudwater and hop supplier YCH called, imaginatively,...
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Smooth moves
Three beers from Dano-Belgian contract brewers To Øl today. To begin, the continuation of a series of soured pale ales, a style of beer I've become very partial to. Sur Citra follows Sur Amarillo which...
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Advanced for his age
Dublin's DOT Brew celebrated its first birthday with a slew of new barrel-aged small-batch beers, brought out to meet the public in Idlewild (and later Abbot's Ale House in Cork) a few weeks ago. The...
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Summer on a budget
The German discount supermarkets are great when summer rolls around and your requirement is for things merely decent, cheap, refreshing and in quantity, for drinking outside. Normally I wouldn't look...
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