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Postmodern postscript
I thought I had finished my west-to-east Dublin taproom odyssey with Urban Brewing, as reported on Monday. But having completed the blackboard there it occurred to me that Dublin does have another...
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Witch, please
The Irish beer festival circuit continued winding back up to normality with the fourth Hagstravaganza festival at The White Hag brewery in Ballymote last month. The brewery's welcome expansion means...
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Power sour hour
Fruit-flavoured sour beer, as brewed by modern craft breweries, is not something I get very excited about. There are a lot of them out there, reflecting how easy they must be to produce in assorted...
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Full Frontaal
They're not messing about at Dutch brewery Frontaal. Here's three beers in three big styles.We begin pale, with Andreas, a tripel. There's no redundant "Belgian" in front of that: it's a "Bredase"...
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Refreshing
My weekend in London wasn't a beer trip, and it's possible I enjoyed it all the more for that. Planning was rudimentary as regards what to drink and precisely where, and knowing it was going to be...
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R you serious?
Tradition dictates that oysters may only be consumed when there's an R in the month. Tradition is silent on when you're allowed to bung them into a stout, however. Galway Bay Brewery's summer stout,...
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Wartime collaboration
Pinta has a series of collaboratively brewed IPAs with breweries from around Europe and beyond. It's called the "Hazy Discovery" series and it seems a bit odd to pick just one fairly narrow genre of...
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Clearance ale
I'm off on holidays for the next while, which meant doing a bit of fridge and notebook clearing before I went. Here's most of a summer's worth of randomly assorted Irish pale ales and IPAs.Nasc was a...
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Peer pressure
It's one of those beers I've seen around for ages and keep meaning to get to. In the pub era it would eventually have turned up as the best draft option on some random evening, but that's so much less...
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The value of nothing
Five euro and thirty-five cent for a 440ml can of a 2.6% ABV table beer. I says to the fella "Do I get the table as well for that?"I don't know if anyone else has noticed but the price of beer is...
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Boundary hopping
An assortment of pale ales of various sorts from Belfast brewer Boundary today. They love a bit of haze so I'm not expecting to see through any of these.We'll start with some Idle Chatter, a 4.5% ABV...
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The buzz stops here
I bought today's Stone beers some time before the announcement of the brewery's takeover by Japanese multinational Sapporo, which should make them taste better than otherwise.The first is perhaps a...
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P9 lives
Today's three beers are from Garage Brewing in Barcelona, all with names that give nothing away about what they are. Even a hint would help, guys.With P9Â even the stated style was obscure: "Barcelona...
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Unfinished business
Last year I went to Brussels in the hope of attending the BXLBeerFest only to find it postponed for a further year. It was back on for 2022, however, and what I found there will feature here later in...
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The usuals
Bear with me as I drag you to a few of my regular haunts in Brussels. All roads lead to Cantillon of course, where the roofspace renovation was in full swing, though with no impact on the first floor...
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BXLnt to each other
Tour & Taxis is a vast former goods depot on the canal in north-west Brussels. As is the way of these things, the authorities have tried hard to find things to do with the plentiful buildings and...
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Neck the halls
We're back for round two of the 2022 BXLBeerFest in the bright and airy ex-warehouse space of Tour & Taxis in Brussels. What delights from my notebook await?A late one on the first day was...
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We should go
It's the last instalment from BXLBeerFest 2022, and you'll forgive me if there's a bit of a rush about these. Things to do, places to be.The first pair there has Zichovec's Mosaic 12Â pale ale on the...
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Large as life
Unlike many an organisation, Ireland's beer consumers' group, Beoir, did not flip to an online way of doing events during the pandemic. This is largely because I, as the chairman, spend quite enough...
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Pick your battles
The Battle of Grunwald was a bit of a big deal. The combined forces of Poland and Lithuania delivered a severe smack to the Teutonic Knights and it remains a reference point in quite a number of...
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