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Lacadaisical
As I was leaving the pub, several cans of Lacada beer fell into my bag. It's strange how often that happens when Simon is in the vicinity.Once brought home and duly chilled, the first to be poured was...
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Solidarność
Today's handsome swingtops are from Browar Staropolski in the vicinity of Łódź. They're both branded as "Worker's Beer" -- Piwo Robotniczo Ludowe -- and feature a dude with a hammer and a dude with a...
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Spring when you're winning
The Wicklow Wolf project seems to be bombing along nicely. Its big fancy brewery, opened in 2019, is now producing a very decent core range, widely available in mainstream shops and pubs, while the...
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Return to the wild
One month isn't too much of a delay? Swifty Simon was critical of my general tardiness in writing up beer events when we met at the second Mullingar Wild Beer Festival. If there's one thing all the...
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Asylum granted
They're not taking sides in the off licence section of supermarket Polonez. You can still buy Russian beer but I recently came across a Ukrainian lager in the Mary Street branch: Obolon Premium,...
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JR Mahon's: an appraisal
This is part three in the ongoing saga of 1-2 Burgh Quay, Dublin, as relates to beer and brewing. Anyone who has ever crossed O'Connell Bridge with a thirst on them will know that between 1998 and 2013...
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It's my party
This year was the first time I attended the Happy Days festival held at Rascals in west Dublin. It's a bijou affair, three rows of stalls gathered around the yard behind the brewery where invited guest...
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Who goes there?
Part two of my account of the Happy Days festival at Rascals last month is about the guest breweries, and six of them in total had something new for me.It shouldn't be surprising that Dublin 8...
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Aldi haul
A whopping four new beers from the German discounter which is less known for its quality beer offer than the other one.The first is a sequel to an IPA released about a year previously. That was Sailor...
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Don't play the hits
A welcome new development at Whiplash is the re-brewing of selected parts of their beer repertoire. Trying to keep up with everything they put out is exhausting, and their dedicating some of their...
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No question
It's another new IPA from Hopfully today, collaboratively brewed with Belfast's Bullhouse and named, I assume, after Norn Iron's finest '90s rock band: Therapy.Oats and wheat make it hazy while Nelson...
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Two sour
It must be summer. There are new fruited sour beers from Irish breweries.First today is the latest in The White Hag's once-annual series of mixed fermentation fruited jobs. The last one was with...
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Haarlem shuffling
I found myself in Haarlem for a few days last month. Amsterdam's neighbour to the west is a compact town but scores well in the drinking leagues with a number of interesting places in which to get a...
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An oversight
Affligem is, if not quite ubiquitous in the Low Countries, at least commonplace. It's an abbey brand owned by Heineken and benefits from the distribution clout which comes with that. Finding it is not...
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Art and craft
The reason I was in the Netherlands at the end of May was to attend the once-in-a-lifetime Vermeer exhibition at the Rijksmuseum. With that out of the way early, the rest of the museum sauntered...
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Bull market
Belfast's Bullhouse is a brewery on the up. After a couple of years off the shelves Down Here they made a triumphant return in the spring with a host of new beers and a tap takeover at UnderDog. Here's...
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Cracked it
Following a smattering of collaborations, Craic Beer Community has made the leap to full-fledged beer brand, sourcing its brewing plans from the community itself. Here are the first two, both brewed in...
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Donkey derby
About a year ago I had my first encounter with Black Donkey's Underworld series, beers fermented with wild yeast harvested from a cave local to the brewery. That was the red ale, Rua, and now I've got...
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Park life
It had been a whole six years since I was last at Bloom, Dublin's garden festival with a food-and-drink twist. The lovely people of Kinsale Mead (Drink the Atlantic Dry!™) were kind enough to supply me...
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The red with the green
It was a surprise to find Reel Deel's Mayo Red in a local off licence. We don't really see much from the Crossmolina microbrewery over here, more's the pity. The beer has been around for ages and this...
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