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Invictus
The sheer dogged resilience of some some beers is staggering. Gold Label (formerly Whitbread Gold Label) is a prime example, normally to be found skulking in the corner of the Sainsbury's beer aisle,...
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One of those posts
Time to haul in the net and see what new Irish beers have shown up this last few weeks.First up, one that made its début, briefly, at the St. Patrick's beer festival in Dublin last month: Carlow...
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No disclaimer large enough
We interrupt our regularly scheduled nothing-at-all to bring news of a new Irish beer which has just started appearing in specialty beer bars around the country. Beoir#1 is the result of a...
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An Italian job
The lovely people of Associazione Degustatori Birra (Lazio branch) were kind enough to invite me out to Rome for a few days in mid-March, in exchange for some words on Irish craft beer at their St....
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Where all roads lead
Following on from Monday's post on the Italian beers I found last month in Rome, this one is about the foreign selection. I did try to drink local as much as possible, but some things were just too...
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Always something new
I've lost track of the number of times I've been to Brussels over the last 12 years. I'm sure it's into double figures by now. And while fixtures like A La Bécasse (right) and Toone are still...
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New beers from old friends
Troubadour Magma is damn near irresistible, and Westkust is a comforting friend, so I'm always alert for new beers from The Musketeers in the hope that this classic double-act can be turned into a...
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Nein!
I didn't really know what to be more surprised at when a review bottle of St Erhard arrived via the company's local distributor: the hip, Absolut-esque branding on a lager from uber-traditional...
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What sap
It's not autumn, but I figured Anchor's BigLeaf Maple"autumn red" should still be OK to drink, being 6% ABV. It's not really red, more of a coppery orange. The smell is enticing: a fruity spicy...
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One tough old bird
My good friend Mr Gray is at the tiller for this round of The Session. He wants us to tell the story of a local brewery. During the nineteenth century there was no shortage of those in the...
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Hoppy sessions and foreign lessons
One of the standard gripes of the Irish beer geek has long been the lack of decent sub-4% ABV beers produced in the country. Over our pints of Porterhouse TSB we've looked enviously at the British beer...
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God no
I don't know where Thomas picked me up this bottle of Nils Oscar God Lager, but somewhere in the UK. The back label is particularly interesting, where it describes itself as an "ultra premium craft"...
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That's grand
One thousand posts! And to celebrate I'm bringing you all to a beer festival! A beer festival where you can't drink any of the beer because it happened nearly a month ago. Real-time beer notes? What do...
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Mixing it up
Shane Long talks to the Dublin Ladies Craft Beer SocietyA footnote to Monday's post on the Franciscan Well Easter Beer Festival today. Founder Shane was keen to show off the new education centre that...
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North...
The Giro d'Italia came to Northern Ireland for a few days recently and I ventured up see the family and some shaven-legged men on bicycles. It was also an opportunity to try some of the newer beers to...
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... and South
More west than south, really. All of today's beers are from Connacht microbreweries. The province's most prolific operation is, of course, Galway Bay. Their latest pilot batch was a Peanut Butter...
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Pull the other one
Kirkstall Three SwordsA couple of English beauties from the beer engines of Dublin today. First up, Lord Marples: according to this book, one of the original beers from the ever-evolving Thornbridge...
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Thanks, Hank
My goat is one of the easily-got breeds. The beer world and how it's described seems to have an inexhaustable supply of terms and trends to wind me up. Until recently, one of them was the style...
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Coast to coast
Two from stateside which arrived courtesy of Richard (looking contemplative on the left of the photo). First up, Yellow Wolf, an imperial IPA from Alameda Brewing in that there Portland, Oregon. It's a...
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Fancy meeting you here
You don't often find foreign beers in Belgium. Maybe the odd off-kilter English or Italian speciality in the likes of Chez Moeder Lambic, but mostly the national supply keeps the pubs stocked. It would...
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