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Beers among the berbers
(Photo by Bryce Edwards, from Flickr Creative Commons)The Grand Hotel Tazi is a bit of a misnomer. It's actually quite an inauspicious-looking premises in the heart of old Marrakesh, aiming perhaps for...
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Hawaii Fido
Of all the beers in the Kona range, Pipeline Porter is the one which came particularly recommended to me. Though brewed at Craft Brew Alliance headquarters in, presumably, Oregon, this one gets an...
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Standing alone
Among the first of the new Irish breweries to release beer into the wild in 2014 was the Independent Brewing Company, based in the Connemara Gaeltacht village of Carraroe, running a 10hL kit with all...
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Close to home
The weekend before last saw the return of Alltech's beer and food extravaganza to the Convention Centre in Dublin. It was a two-strand operation: upstairs in the sessions for the trade, publicans were...
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What the continentals brought to the party
One of the highlights of the Alltech festival is always (ie twice so far) the beers from abroad that we don't normally see here. Ticker heaven. Lots of unfamiliar European breweries had either sent...
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The Brewgrass State
To round off this week's posts on the Alltech Brews and Food 2014 event, we turn to the beers from Alltech's home country of the USA. In fact, the emphasis was on the company's home state of Kentucky...
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Divine uninspiration
This pair of Belgian abbey beers, brewed under licence at Brunehaut, sat in my fridge a few months longer than they should have, largely because the label is so dull. I reckon my eye just slid over...
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Baying for more
With Beoir's Beer of the Year for 2014 and a gold medal at Alltech under their belt, Galway Bay Brewery is not exactly short on laurels, but they certainly haven't been resting on them. This last few...
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In the bag
It's hard to keep up with the busy little gypsies of the Brown Paper Bag Project. No fewer than three beers have come out since the beginning of 2014, with another currently in preparation in the Czech...
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Moch the weak
Bateman's Mocha isn't weak: 6% ABV, in fact, and very proud of itself. The chocolate is Belgian, we're told; the coffee arabica. It's pale for all that, an off-white head rather than beige, over a body...
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The world in a glass
Why do you drink? asks Douglas, host of this month's session. For me, there are as many answers to that as there are beers, but the one I'm singling out for this post relates to one of the few things I...
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Sawed off
The label of Left Hand's amber ale, Sawtooth, is a burst of colour but the excitement pretty much ends there. It presents as more of a dark gold colour than properly amber, though pleasingly clear. The...
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Who you calling a hypocrite?
There's a lovely bit of Breughel on the label of these two, illustrations from his Flemish Proverbs series. "Pillar-biter" is, apparently, an old Flemish expression meaning hypocrite and here we see...
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Ego Patricius
Time was, a new Irish beer review was a special effort I put in for St Patrick's Day. These days it's hard to keep up. So here's a round-up of my last few weeks of Irish beer exploring, for the day...
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Caerphilly does it
I felt like apologising to my bottle of Silures as I poured it: eight months in the fridge, six weeks past its best-before. My first Celt Experience experience should have been under more appropriate...
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Tony Supremo
So this is My Antonia, the legendary collaboration with Dogfish Head brewed at Birra Del Borgo. You need credentials like that to get me to buy something badged as an imperial pilsner, because they're...
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Expand and contract
Brú has become the latest Irish brewery to begin making an own-brand beer for a large contractor. They've enlisted veteran distributor Cremin & Radley to sell their beers, a deal which gave them...
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Taking down the clown
Another jolly, and slightly weird, Belgian cartoon on the label of Paljas Blond, from Brouwerij Henricus in Zeebrugge. It's bright and only slightly hazy for a small bottle-conditioned job. The first...
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Something in the water
A couple of pubs have had it, but I stumbled upon this glass of Victory Headwaters Pale Ale in Farrington's a few weeks ago. Apparently, the beer celebrates the Pennsylvania brewery's water supply,...
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Here isn't the news
"Beer Journalism" is Heather's choice of topic for this 86th round of The Session, asking us to turn a critical eye on how the media cover the beer industry. Madam, that's the only kind of eye I've...
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