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COP on
To cash in on the Glasgow climate change conference in the most eco-friendly way possible, beer brand Toast has co-created a series of commemorative beers with breweries around the UK, all using the...
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Antipodean summer
A lager that promised to take me to a sunny place sounded like just the ticket on a dismal and blustery day. And The Reflex even looks sunny, a bright rich yellow with a light shimmering haze. The...
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Castles, cafés and conversions
The alarm went at 3.45am on Thursday and the weekend was under way. I had booked a manageable 10.30am flight but the wags at Aer Lingus decided it would be more fun to send me off at stupid o'clock, so...
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Zwolle incognita
Yesterday's post left off with our arrival in Zwolle, a Dutch city I'd never been to before. From what I saw, it's a pleasant little place, if a little sleepy, lacking the verve that students bring to...
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For the Gram
From Zwolle, we set off further westwards on Saturday morning for Gramsbergen, a small town about 3km from the border with Germany. G-berg, as nobody calls it, is home to the Mommeriete brewery, set in...
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Crawling through Amsterdam
With EBCU business concluded, Reuben and I made our way from Zwolle to Amsterdam with a bit of time to punch in before going home. I suggested the MoreBeer Tour, a visit to the four bars owned by Peter...
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Bock on the clock
Asahi-owned Dutch giant Grolsch seems to be putting a particular effort into making autumn bock season its thing. On my way across the Netherlands and back last month I found three different releases...
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A multiplicity of hops
It's time for another rundown of all the pale ales and IPAs that have come my way from Irish breweries over the last couple of months.Common Element is a new can from Dead Centre, a pale ale at 4.1%...
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Fireside not included
This year's large-format high-strength Rye River special edition arrived in early October, just in time for the evenings drawing in. They've done us a wheat wine of 10.5% ABV, using smoked malt and...
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Die Grünen
Green cans and Germanic styles are all that connects today's pair of offerings from Irish breweries. Any excuse for drinking two in a row.For their 25th Limited Edition, Hope came up with the...
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Corporate gigs
Everyone's favourite UK pub chains, JD Wetherspoon and BrewDog, brought simultaneous festivals to their Dublin branches in October.For BrewDog it was the first CollabFest since they opened, shortly...
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Just a Helles
Nothing fancy today. A standalone lager from the generally-reliable Austrian brewery Stiegl. That said, I'm not a big fan of their flagship, Goldbräu, so was hoping better from Stiegl Hell.The...
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The other Bay Brewery
Dundalk Bay Brewery, the beer-making offshoot of metal fabricator Spectac, cut its teeth on straightforward traditional recipes for the pub trade, and I'm sure that's still what keeps the lights on....
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Monstrous beasts
I've built up something of a backlog of Wicklow Wolf beers over the last few months. That's partly down to the sort of beers they've been producing, going in for strong and dark in a big way. I love...
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Tidy Toronto
A pair of double IPAs today from the Great White South-Of-Here: Collective Arts in Toronto. Both have been hanging around in local off licence fridges for several months now but are still within date,...
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Gill trip
Prolific Sligo brewery Lough Gill has three for us today. I tend to associate their output most with fruited sour beers and amped-up pastry stouts, but they're only reverting to type with one of...
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Keep on keeping up
It's an epic rundown of the beers from the Third Barrel brewery in Dublin today. As ever, they've been busy with beer under their own brands and those they brew for others.Before we hit the hoppy...
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Bring the blackness
It's a veritable dark beer jamboree out there at the moment. I'm loving it. Today it's three random selections of the black stuff from the beer fridge.The new seasonal from Hope is first, their Emmer...
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Line up
Usually, Lineman beers arrive here in ones and twos but I have an unprecedented trio of winter releases today, kindly dropped off to me by the brewery before I got around to buying them.In a seasonally...
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Let there be lager
It's an all cold-fermented Irish session today. Nearly half of the offerings are from Galway Bay, a brewery which has been fairly churning out the lagers this past while. No complaints here. In time...
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