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Down the hatch in London and Brighton
A couple of recent posts were about my weekend in London at the beginning of July. Before that I spent a couple of days in Brighton for work. Time was tight and I did no pub-hopping, not even a return...
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Too sloe
You know you're in Belgium when your bottle of beer features a cartoon version of itself on the label. So it is with Sloeber, not the most attractive name for a beer I've ever encountered. A dark gold...
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Five point plan
These five beers by Stevens Point Brewery in Wisconsin came as a freebie from The Beer Club (thanks Stephen!) who are importing the range. The initial set looks to have crossed the Atlantic a little...
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Tales from the press room
Last month, Dublin played host to the Alltech Gathering, a three-day conference / tradeshow / festival organised by the Kentucky-based multi-faceted Alltech corporation, which has brewing as just one...
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JW Sweetman: an appraisal
A bit over eight years ago I wrote a post called "Messrs Maguire: an appraisal", a diatribe on Dublin's only brewpub composed in my usual high-handed snobby style, disappointed that what should be a...
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The local news
Irish Craft Beer Week rumbles onwards, leading us to the final destination of the Irish Craft Beer and Cider Festival, kicking off in the RDS tomorrow afternoon and running through to Sunday. The beer...
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Picking sides
Last week I wrote about the Alltech Gathering held in Dublin in July, mentioning some of the internationally sourced beers they had available. I'm bringing us back to the press room for this month's...
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Crowd sauce
The Brown Paper Bag Project went viral with the launch of their new beer a couple of weeks ago, releasing it anonymously and under wraps ahead of a simultaneous Twitter-based blind tasting. This is the...
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Et tuatara?
Beer from New Zealand today, a country I visited back in 2006, narrowly missing the craft beer boom it has experienced in more recent years. These three are from Tuatara, a brewery not far from...
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Start-ups and upstarts
Once more, early September brought the biggest showcase of Irish craft beer and cider to Dublin, with the third annual festival at the RDS. For 2013 the gig expanded to four days and incorporated a...
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For a limited time only
As well as meeting new beers and breweries, the other thing the Irish Craft Beer Festival is good for is the festival one-offs. With a captive market of 10,000 people and two of the four days being...
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Still got it
The last in my series of posts on the Irish Craft Beer and Cider Festival, which ran at the RDS in Dublin a couple of weeks ago, moves away from the new young and thrusting breweries of the burgeoning...
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Scorch and screech
Two from Peterborough's finest today. Oakham Inferno first and, despite the bluster of the name, it pours a sickly pale yellow, looking for all the world like a cheap adjunct lager. The aroma comes...
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Pottstown steelers
What really seems to have got people talking about the Sly Fox Helles is its pull-off top, removing the whole top surface, presumably to create a better experience for those who opt to drink straight...
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Coal porter
I've had a bit of an on-again-off-again relationship with Belgian stout over the years. The much-loved Hercule was tough going for me, while Leroy ranks among the worst beers I've ever had the...
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Spotty Dalmatians
I hope y'all like consonants, 'cos I'm just back from the Balkans and there's nothing them fellas like more than squeezing a whole load of hard pointy letters into tiny spaces. Except possibly for...
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Rebalancing
It's very much a topic-of-the-moment for The Session this month. Derek is hosting at It's Not Just the Alcohol Talking, and he asks "Is Craft Beer A Bubble?" I can't really speak for anywhere beyond my...
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Hopping off
For the third year running my summer finished on the high note that is the Borefts Beer Festival, hosted by the De Molen brewery in Bodegraven. It changes shape every year and for 2013 left the...
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Going dark
It goes without saying that dark beers were a big part of the Borefts Beer Festival 2013, De Molen being particularly known for its imperial stouts. Just when you thought they had run out of things to...
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Turning sour
The beers at Borefts, like many of the attendees, offered a generous insight into what's currently in fashion. It seems to be all about the sour these days, a modern twist on styles developed before...
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