The Tale Of The Ale

Craft beer scene in North Carolina - #ebbc12

2012-06-03T13:46:00.003+01:00

At this years European Beer bloggers Conference I met a guy called Jeffrey Katrencik who is also known as The Biking Brewer. While he does have his own blog, he has yet to write anything on it. Instead he has been blogging with his German friend Alexander Haller* over on Brewing up Bushwick. The three of us had some good times and I know we all fondly remember the odd but fantastic Kebabs that come on naan bread instead of pita bread, something even the Leeds locals had not come across and we came across them in separate places on two different nights. Much better than regular kebabs I thought.

Anyway in this video, which was the night of international beers, Jeff talks about the craft beer scene in his adopted state of North Carolina. Now; NC is not a state we hear about very often in relation to craft beer, at least certainly not in Europe but some interesting developments have occurred there recently that are putting it on the map.

Anyway take a look at the video if you like. Jeff also talks a little about the Highland Brewing Company in NC and their Gaelic Ale. His time in the UK changed his opinion of that beer. I don't recall much about the beer myself, way too much beer to keep track of that night.

* I interviewed Alex and he talks about German beer on the Conference Highlights video but Jeff knows how to talk and is very good at giving an interview so I had to cut him out and give him his own video.

Conference Highlights #EBBC12

2012-05-31T11:55:00.000+01:00

This one is going to be purely a video post as I think it captures the spirit best. These are the highlights of the conference over the two days and do not contain the pub crawl or the Magic Rock visit.

Hope people enjoy.

Err... Dullsville is pretty dull indeed

2012-05-30T12:21:00.000+01:00

These bloody video's from EBBC12 take an age to put together and I am not even sure they are worth the time. That said, I said I would do it so I am bloody well going to finish them.

To fill in time, here are two beers I had grabbed in Tesco recently when they started stocking craft beers. They have excellent deals on, temporary though they might be. Don't ignore your independent off-licence though.

I grabbed Brewers Dark because I like dark beer and it was new from a brewery I don't know. Only after I put it in the trolley did I see it was "one of those 2.8% beers". I had Guinness 2.8 and while it is drinkable, it just misses so much (even for Guinness) and we are not just talking about alcohol.

The only part of my notes that stand out is "Absolute shit but at 2.8% it's a decent session beer. I imagine it's best served cold like I had it". So there you have it. Apparently it used to be 3.5% so I can only hope it was a little better. They would have been better bringing out a 2.8% version for those who want it and leaving the 3.5% alone, or maybe it made no difference.

Can one drink an entire pint of 2.8% beer and not be over the legal limit? Can one drink two in an hour and a half and still be OK? Just curious about that, I have never looked in to that as I tend to just avoid or at most I will have a half if not going to drive for an hour.

Shipyard IPA is obviously forgettable because I thought it was still in my fridge. TheBeerNut talked about it recently. I will not go in to much detail but it was just bitter orange pith. Metallic notes. This could be a shepherd neame beer with extra hops.

I had the export recently and it was also dull. So between the two of us we have had 3 Shipyard beers and they have been, well utter crap. Is there a three strikes rule in beer?

A visit to York #EBBC12

2012-05-27T19:00:00.002+01:00

On the Thursday before the European Beer Bloggers Conference in Leeds this year, I jumped on a train to York in the morning before heading back to Leeds for the pre-conference pub crawl.

On leaving the train station I noticed the York Tap which advertised craft beer and decided I should try it before I head back. My destination was going to be the York brewery but I decided to get a hair cut first and then have lunch at a pub.

York is a beautiful medieval city with a complete wall and narrow streets. It's also home to some pretty interesting looking pubs that I did not have time to visit.

One of which was The last drop. This is a York Brewery pub and was where I decided to go for lunch.

Not a huge range of beers but there is 6 on cask, a few keg and a good selection of bottles. Nice enough little pub. Quiet at noon on Thursday. No bar seating. I reckon it gets busy later at night and has a good atmosphere.

I had a Yorkshire Terrier which is a nice bitter. Golden colour. Earthy hops. Somewhat honeyish.

Centurions ghost was my choice to have with my food, one of the sausages in my bangers and mash was made with this beer so I figured it would match. I'm sure I had this beer before, perhaps at the Belfast beer festival. Lovely rich chocolate. Strong caramel malt. Porter or dark ale? Lovely bitter roast finish.

This is one of the interesting looking pubs I did not get to check out. It's opposite another York pub called The Yorkshire Terrier (like the beer).

A 10 minute walk away, across the river and back towards the train station for the York Brewery.

Inside is a nice bar with some very comfortable couches at the back and tables at the front based on wooden barrels.

This bar is available for functions if you are a brewery friend / member. I think it's only £3 a year or something very cheap like that and there are a range of benefits like cheaper pints etc than drop-ins.

Just a bit of brewery porn.

Open top fermenters seem to be the norm for British breweries that do cask it seems.

I put together a video of the tour so check out below if you want to see what it's like. It's pretty good and while it does cost £6 you do get two half pints out of that and the rest goes to keeping the brewery ticking over. Support your local brewery and if visiting like myself, support the local breweries wherever you go.

I went to the York Tap by the station later. The video contains a bit of footage. By now I was feeling a little peckish and the £2 pork pies went down a treat.

Much more expensive than The Last Drop: £2.10 for a half versus £2.30 for pint in last drop. However visiting somewhere with 20 beers on cask and 12 kegged, most real ale is like visiting an Irish beer festival. Good few bottled beers also.
£3.50 seems to be the pint price.

That said, seems £1.75 is a more normal price here for a half.

Here are the beers I had in half pint format. I have a half cyclops for them with just Smell and Taste.
These were written on my phone so excuse the bad formatting and I can't be arsed correcting.

Little valley hebdens wheat 4.5
Not bad. Little watery and boring. Refreshing but not sure it works on cask.

Thornbridge pivní 3.2
S slight cheesy funk. Then some citrus
T quite weak tasting. Somewhat smokey but like watered down whiskey.

New brewey- the hop studio see video.
Pilsner
Massive foaming head that grows. Lots of bubbles.
S slight lemon.
T Result is a dry pilsner. It is perhaps a little too fizzy. Generously hopped but does seem a tad bit watery. It leaves a pleasant bitterness. Hops are a little earthy. While colder than real ale, it's bot actually too cold. A respectable pilsner I think.

Great heck -stormin Norman 6.5
S not a lot. Some slight sugar.
T strong alcohol but not paint thinner. You know it's a high abv beer. Some fruit. Drying alcohol. Nice but not with he abv.

Kirkstall framboise £2.10
S raspberry of course.
T starts sweet like juice but almost immediately becomes tart with mouth
Puckering sourness before becoming sweet again. Reminds me of an acopop but since there is a good sour note, it's worth drinking. No cantillon but still nice.

And here is the video post if you want to take a look. At the very least you will see some of the York Brewery tour. Be sure to watch full screen.

Keynote Speech by Stuart Howe - complete video - #ebbc12

2012-05-24T10:01:00.001+01:00

Here is the first video post from the European Beer Bloggers Conference. Not only that, it's the first video post on taleofale.com or at least the first video I have posted that was shot by myself and is beer related. I may have stuck a ghost video up once.

Anyhow, for those that missed the conference, here is the keynote speech given by Stuart Howe.

It's pretty much the entire thing with a few pauses taken out during the Q and A session. Also some jerky camera movements, though I left some in place as they contained relevent pars of the speech.

Hope you enjoy, it's nearly 20 minutes long though. Be sure to click the full screen option as the in-blog window is pretty small.

The conference is over, time for the reports #EBBC12

2012-05-21T22:05:00.002+01:00

I have a lot to get through for the conference, and while I will be writing a traditional blog post, I expect them to be short and will be accompanied by video footage of the event. As near as I could tell, I was the only person shooting video, unless the people with the big fancy digital SLRs were shooting video as well.
I seem to have taken 101 clips with 14.5GB worth of video on my little full HD camera. I have also never done a video post before. Had I had better battery charging abilities I might have made better use of the camera and done some interviews. Instead I only did one interview and that was of a fellow blogger on the international beer night.

When I get a video compiled, I will post it. I expect to do one for my trip to York and the pub crawl - General conference footage - Pilsner Urquell nigh - Probably Magic Rock trip also.

In the meantime, here are a few random pictures for those that could not make it.

Brewery meet and greet.

Marv and Sophie arrive fashionably late.

Dorset Knobs - These provided a lot of amusement. They
would also make decent ammunition.

The Badger table had great beer and the only one to have food.
Cheese and knobs.

Eh, the conference.

Loved the hose comment that they are all crap, though the use of
a hyphen is a bit of a no no in domain names.

We were about to find out that beer glassware DOES make a
difference, and not a small one.

Fancy camera work, or else how my vision was looking by
dinner.

The Superstars

Said best by @HopZine: Stuart Howe is the Gordon Ramsey
of brewing. You sexy b@@tard! #EBBC12

Dredge doing some work during the live beer blogging.

Live Beer Blogging #ebbc12

2012-05-19T16:55:00.002+01:00

This is about to start. This page will be updated over the next hour.

Roosters

Cask beer, baby faced assassin. Orange, honey almost meade like aroma. 6.1%. No bittering hops, all aroma. It shows because it's not bitter.Dangerously drinkable.

Innis and Gunn

Scottish pale ale 7% toffee, slight smoke but surprisingly muted.Slight bitterness at the end and a fair bit of sugar but I would not consider it sweet. Actually refreshing. I really like this.

Marble Beers

Earl Grey IPA 6.8% - Very bubbly. Resinous grassy hop character. Orange and lemon citrus. It's easy to drink and does not seem like an almost 7% beer. Love it.

Slaters

Top Totty 4% blonde ale. Very clean and crisp. Seems like a lager. wheaty and full of cereal. Fantastic summer beer.

Adnams

Ghost ship

S.A. Brain and Co. Ltd

Brains Dark - chocolate, toffee, some liquorice, nutty. Quite light and at only 4.1% it's a great session beer.

Camden Town

USA Hells- unfiltered lager, interesting flavour mix. Fresh like a lager but has a lot of flavour, though picking one out is hard.Certainly citrus, perhaps orange and lemon. Lovely beer.

Otley Brewing

Oxymoron - Loved it at the Belfast beer festival. Like fresh hop juice. I love this beer.

Great Heck
Stormin Norman 6.5 % Alcohol is strong but not cloying or medicinal. Some summer fruit.I like it but I think the ABV is a little unnecessary for this beer, it seems a lower abv would suit it better. It feels sessionable but it's not.

Leeds brewery
Hellfire 5.2% Very pale, almost straw. Slight cereal. Somewhat bitter but not too much so. Seems very easy drinking. Somewhat spicy.

Weissenoher Classic Export

2012-05-15T20:55:00.000+01:00

Weißenoher is not a brewery I'm familiar with but the classic export was on special at drinkstore so I grabbed a few back in March. There is a very heavy cereal thing going on here. While it is quite refreshing like a good lager should be, that heaviness stops it from becoming sessionable for me. There is a burnt rye bread feel and it's also rather bitter with a spicy finish. I liked it but that's about all I can say about it. I'm not sure I would bother again even if still on special.

On Thursday I head to Leeds for the second European Beer Bloggers conference. If it's anything like last year, it should be lots of fun and also quite educational.

Ghost Ship - Adnams

2012-05-11T16:18:00.000+01:00

Last week, Adnams launched Ghost Ship, or should I say re-launched. I was invited to the launch but of course I could not make it for obvious logistical reasons. Instead, the good people of Adnams sent me a sample of the new beer.

At 4.5% this is a session beer but what a session beer. It's no quaffable English pale ale, this is a beer for citrus lovers. Sol and Corona drinkers can take their bland beer and add lime to give it some sort of flavour but Ghost Ship achieves this naturally through the use of hops resulting in a much better experience*.
The aroma is almost entirely citrus at first. Lemon and lime pith followed by some tropical fruits and then a little biscuit before finalising on lemon sherbet.
In the mouth it gets interesting. Once you get over the mouthfeel, which is very soft but well carbonated. It's not fizzy like a lager but more like a soft water Pilsner or Kölsch. We start off with tropical fruits and then the lemon and lime citric notes power through and you are left with a lingering bitterness and your mouth demanding more. There is only a slight malt backbone here, what's there is overpowered by the citrus and tropical fruits.

As session beers go, for me, it does not get much better than this. I love how there is so much flavour packed in to 4.5% here and it just goes to show that the combination of Chinook, Motueka and Citra brings to the party.

It should be noted that I think this version is different to the version previously released as a seasonal, judging by older ratebeer reviews that is. It sounds like the original version was a little on the boring side but I did not find this in any way boring.

* I mention this because I would be curious to see how Sol/Corona drinkers react when given a beer like Ghost Ship? In my experience, most Sol/Corona drinkers are women. That's just an observation and may not be backed up by facts. It would be a mistake to market this as a beer for women but I believe some clever marketing might get women drinking it. I guarantee my wife would love it.

The Brew Dock - Dublin

2012-05-06T22:11:00.001+01:00

The Brew dock is one of Dublin's latest craft beer destinations. Building on the format that has worked so well, the Galway based Cottage group have turned the former Kate's Cottage opposite Busaras and across the road from Connelly station and turned it from what I can only imagine was a pub for locals in a somewhat dodgy area. By day it's perfectly safe but Amiens street, which the brew dock is on the corner of, has a less than rosy reputation at night. That probably explains the rather large man who stands at the door looking like he will deny entry as it's a private bar. By all accounts, Kate's was famous for a good pint of Guinness but you won't find that particular beverage in this new incarnation.

Instead you will find 21 taps plus a hand pump for cask. There is also an extensive bottle list giving us about 100 different beers almost all of which is either craft or at least pretty decent macro stuff.

Both times I have been in, I have witnessed the expected. People coming in looking for Guinness, Carlsberg, Miller and the usual swill they have been force fed for decades. They can usually be appeased with Dark Arts, Fischer, Grolsch and so on. They tend to stay away from the exciting stuff like 5am Saint, Punk IPA, Galway Hooker and so on. There is just too many to list. An let's not forget the Galway Bay Brewery based in the Oslo brewpub in Salthill.

TheBeerNut recently mentioned the new Full Sail pale ale. I had this shortly after the pub opened but never got around to writing about the place. Since I was just there today I thought there is no better time to get typing. Anyway the best thing I can say about Full Sail is that, well it's nice. It's inoffensive and very sessionable. I imagine it's what they are going for and in that sense they have succeeded. It's just yet another Irish brewery doing a pale ale that sort of limps behind it's imported counterparts in terms of hop content. It seemed a bit more English than American to me. I prefer the American pale ales myself but there are some cracking English pale ales out there like White Shield.

I think we need to put this in context and head office should take note of the following. And this does not reflect on the brew dock at all, this is for the brewery to take note.

The price of beer in the Brew dock is not cheap. It's €5 so I would say average or perhaps a little over, I'm not sure to be honest but basing it on €4 for Messrs Maguires beers and about €4.50 for most beers on tap at the Bull and Castle, €5 seems a little steep but then compared to other pubs and including some other craft beer destinations, €5 is average. Now this is just to illustrate how much regular beer costs in this pub.

Was I drinking Full Sail? No. Was anyone ordering it? I don't believe so. Not while I was there. There is nothing wrong with it, it's just that it's boring. I enjoyed my pint the first time I was in but I moved on to more interesting stuff.

No myself and many others around the bar, and I was there by myself so I did not know these people. I had no influence on what they ordered, anyway I had 5am saint, others had Punk IPA and there was one Howling Gale which does not count in my example for the following reason. The beers being ordered were packed full of hops. It's like brewdog whacked in a load of hops and then figured they still had some left so they bunged the rest in too. These beers were €6 and some change (I think) and that's what people were ordering. Sure there were other beers served but to me, sitting at the bar having dinner, it just seemed that everyone was willing to pay an extra €1 for that extra hop bite.

We need another sessionable pale ale in this country like a hole in the head. We are too small a market for every new brewery to provide one. What we lack is a Punk IPA or 5am saint. We need a hop bomb people!!!!

Sorry I'm ranting a little so I will move on with the food.

The Brew dock is rather spacious with a generous upstairs area to complement the main bar downstairs. They do serve food and today I availed of the facility while waiting for my bus home. I do love how convenient it is to Busaras. Here lies a small problem. The menu is a little disappointing to me. There were only two things on it it that sounded appetising. A giant chicken burger and then I had the BBQ platter. The platter was nice enough with spare ribs, wings, mini corn on the cob and some gralic bread. There was also coleslaw but it was typically Irish. Pretty much mayo with some cabbage and carrots in it, the sort I don't like. Against the grain has a better menu as does their other sister pub, the black sheep.

I'm hoping they spice up the menu a bit because I have no real desire to eat there again unless I am there and find myself hungry.

By the way I am only talking about the main courses here. Their bar snacks are a little more interesting.

I did not even see fish and chips on the menu*, a crime in any pub to be honest. I almost felt like walking to the Black Sheep for fish and jenga style chips.

I have just realised that I might be coming across as negative here. I just want to make it clear that I love the brew dock. I think it's a great pub with some fantastic beers in a very convenient location for public transport. I love the interior and I love the beer. I love the lack of TV and that when music is playing, it's at a low level just like its sister pubs. I love that you can get a beer paddle with samples of beer. Just jazz up the menu somewhat. Put some seafood on there, even if only fish and chips, and I apologise if fish and chips was there and I did not notice it. That's it, that's my only complaint and it might be just my preference when it comes to food I like to see on a menu.

Also I never know what's on cask. There does not seem to be a clip and I did not notice a chalk board listing rotation beers etc. For anyone reading who is planning to head in for the first time, if you like stouts and porters, try their own Stormy Port. It's actually very nice.

With luck the IFSC crowd will catch on and business will start booming. I wish them all the luck and I will of course be back.

* According to Eamon, there is fish. See comments.

The beer moment - The Session 63

2012-05-04T14:08:00.003+01:00

This month's session is finally brought to you by Pete Brown, a man who should need no introduction to any real beer aficionado. Well at least this side of the Atlantic, I have no idea how well known he is in the US or outside of Ireland and the UK for that matter.
Pete was meant to host a few months back but his laptop jumped into someone else arms and went AWOL meaning he lost all his work on his latest book. Hopefully Pete has now learned about backing up work and has employed the powers of dropbox or something similar.

The Beer Moment.

That's the topic Pete as picked for us this month. Three simple words, one phrase and a hell of a lot of leeway because we have to wrote about what that phrase evokes in our soul, what images spring to mind, what the hell it means to us. Or we can just wing it and write utter bollox and end it all with "and that's the beer moment".

So what does it mean to me? That's the question being asked and I wonder how I can describe it without coming across as a newbie and an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

To me, the beer moment is that moment of bliss when you get home from work and know you have no where to go, nowhere to drive to and can just put your feet up and take that first sip of frothy, bubbly ambrosia and you just know that everything is going to be OK. You might have had a rubbish day, been cut off and almost rammed by muppets who don't know how to use a roundabout. Maybe you feeling a little lonely. Maybe you even feel on top of the world but when you take that first sip of beer, the world becomes a football you can kick around. It's not even the alcohol that produces the feeling because after one sip, it has not even had time to make it to your stomach let alone cause any feeling of drunkenness. In fact the beer moment does not even have to be that first sip, it can be the anticipation as you pour from a bottle or from a tap if you have beer on tap at home like I do.

Of course this example is of someone at home after work but what if you go out to the pub and meet some friends? Or even on your own and decide to make some friends while there? The setting and circumstances have changed but the end result is the same. You lift your beer but you don't take a mouthful, Jaysus no, that's for drinkers of pale yellow fizzy stuff. No you slowly lift the glass and take a big sniff taking in the aroma, even if it's a boring session beer, hell even if it's a glass of pale yellow fizzy stuff you still want whatever aroma is there. Then there is a pause and finally to the lips we proceed. Down goes the first mouthful and it's only then that you realise that time almost stood still for a few moments. Sound was muted, motion was slowed and when you take your first mouthful, everything starts back to normal speed again.

This is probably more or less what happens to everyone who loves beer, more or less anyway.

So if it's not the alcohol then what is it then? Saying The Beer Moment makes sense but I don't know if there is such a thing as The Wine Moment or The Vodka Moment. Perhaps there is a Whiskey Moment, I might be inclined to have similar feelings if drinking a whiskey but it's not the same for me. That's how I know I am not an alcoholic even though my whole family seems to think I probably am. I don't crave alcohol, I crave beer. If there is no beer available to me then I drink water. Actually even if beer is available I drink water on the side to keep hydrated.
I have a full bar at home packed with various alcoholic drinks but if I run out of beer, be that my own beer or commercial beer, I don't fall back on the dozens of bottles of alcohol I have. I go to the tap and pour a glass of water instead. If I make a cocktail for my wife I take a sip to make sure it tastes OK but I don't make one for myself. The only non beer alcoholic drink I go for is Whiskey and even then I drink it rarely even if I have some available.

So why does beer evoke such a strong sense of loyalty in me? Why does beer give me that blissful feeling when other alcoholic products do not? I don't know but considering I'm not the first person to feel that way. Certainly 6000 years ago the Sumarians discovered the beer moment. It was a divine gift from the Gods and that thought stayed with the human race until quite recently actually. It was not that long ago that microbiology became understood and it was found that yeast is the stuff previously referred to as godisgoode.

If you have made it this far then congratulations. I hope it was not too much waffle for you to stomach but that's how I feel. Nothing else makes me feel the way that first beer does, except of course seeing my wife after an absence.

So in summary, The Beer Moment is that first beer of the day when everything falls into place and life is always good and not much else does that in the world.

If you are not participating in the session but would like to leave a comment on what it means to you then by all means either leave a comment below or mosey on over to Pete's article and comment there.

Oh and may the fourth be with you.

Shipyard Export

2012-05-02T16:13:00.001+01:00

It's always a pity when I try a beer from a new brewery (to me) for the first time and find myself completely underwhelmed. Shipyard Export is the breweries flagship ale and while there is nothing wrong with it, I can't find a whole lot that's good about it either. That's not always a bad thing in these days of million IBU super dry hopped Double IPAs and stupidly high ABV barley wines and imperial stouts as strong as whiskey, sometimes having a more mundane beer can be interesting in itself. The big boys have known that for years and made a killing on plain and boring yellow fizzy stuff.

We start off toasted cereal grains on the nose with a bit of rye, toffee and some fruit. All in it's a very pleasant aroma. On tasting it is instantly spoiled by being too fizzy, though that can be sorted with a little bit of patience. Surprisingly I did not find much in the way of fruit and toffee like the aroma suggested and certainly no rye (pretty sure there is none in the grist anyway). Instead I was assaulted with a burnt and bitter finish. Perhaps the burnt was toffee but it seemed more like charcoal. I have to say I rather enjoyed it and if it was 4% instead of 5.1% then it would make a refreshing session beer. Now I need to find another Shipyard beer that has more redeeming qualities. That might be difficult if TheBeerNut's experience of another Shipyard beer is anything to go by but that was one of those "speciality seasonal beers" which can be hit and miss. At least he had a hat to go with it.

Cheap grain mill that does the job nicely.

2012-04-30T19:50:00.000+01:00

A few weeks ago, Brian from HomeBrewWest announced on Beoir that their grain mill has been reduced to €39.95 making it very affordable. Here is the one in question. When I asked the question, can the arm come off and a drill attached it created a bit of a buzz. Brian then offered a free mill to a few of us to find out how easy it is to modify, showing what a decent fellow he is.

One of the other members already did a bit of a report in that Beoir post but here is what I did.

Firstly I spent a bit of time in Woodies DIY and in the end I settled on an end which is more or less the same as the arm bolt (also pictured above). It's just a bit longer. All you need is an M8 bolt or even just a rod. Either way it needs to be cut.

I used my Dremel (great to have an excuse to use it) to cut the end off and then square it so the drill fits better. It will also make it easier to remove if I want to use the handle and get some exercise. Holding pints just does not build the muscle mass you might dream it does.

Perfect fit and works just fine, though I need to run a batch through it to be sure but I imagine the lowest setting is all I need. I have heard that battery drills are better than electric for the lower speeds.

The second part of the project was actually the first. When I got the mill I brewed the next day and used the handle. Actually it was quick enough with the handle for the just under 1kg of grain I was milling but I imagine the drill might be useful for milling 3kg or more.

I attached it to my workbench (another excuse to use DIY stuff), put a bucket underneath and then a big pot on top to catch the grain. I could just use the bucket but that might create dust.

I also attached half a ventilation pipe (cut with the Dremel) as a chute. It looked simple and I figured it would work.

It did but enough grain was lifted over the edge to make a mess. So I added the other half to offset that and make another little chute.

This worked a lot better but still, some of the grain escaped over the edge. I needed a roof so it was back to the drawing board.

This time I took another ventilation tube and just cut it down one side. I was then able to wrap this around the bottom. It's not perfect but it stays in place with a little gentle persuasion.

I then took one of the halves and taped it to the top. There is pretty much no escaping grain now other than the odd crumb.

Here is a better view of the grain chute. There are probably better ways of doing this but I just happened to have the ventilation tubes sitting around so they seemed perfect for the job.

Thanks again to Brian in HomeBrewWest for the opportunity to do a little DIY on brewday. I encourage anyone in Ireland looking for a grain mill to check it out as it is by far the cheapest. Also if you live near Galway, drop in to the shop and have a browse.

I will probably be kegging the beer I brewed using the mill this weekend so expect a report in a few weeks.

Alpha Dawg

2012-04-27T16:20:00.000+01:00

Alpha Dawg is a 5.9% ABV India pale ale brewed by The Franciscan Well. The aroma is crisp and somewhat wheaty with a slight citrus bite.
On tasting it starts off with a sweet malty backbone with hints of orange. It's like a British pale ale with a little more alcohol. Not much sign of the cascade but it's there hiding in the shadows trying to get your attention. The finish is bitter with a sweet caramel malt. Very nice beer, though since it tastes more like an English IPA to me, they would have been better sticking with British hops rather than US.
I know this term might be a bit of a cliché these days but I will say it anyway. Needs more hops!
That said, it's a lovely drop and if anything it probably works a little better on cask with a little dry hopping.

Want some? There are a few bottles knocking about certain off-licences* but otherwise you might have to wait until the next batch, and I hope there is one. In fact I think they should make this a regular, especially if they up the hop level a bit.

I finished my bottles off weeks ago but decided to hold off on writing so as not to overlap with The Beer Nut.

* Twitter update - Bradley's in Cork certainly do at the moment.

Brew #44 & #45 - Wheaty Goodness 2 and Oh Vienna

2012-04-23T18:50:00.000+01:00

You may recall that a couple of years back, I brewed a simple enough wheat beer and added plenty of hops in it. It was called wheaty goodness and after an intial phase of tasting infected, it turned out very lovely.

I brewed it again 2 weeks ago with some variations of course. I am hoping for the same sourness that I had the first time around. If I get it, that means that the first beer was never infected and was actually a result of the hops, or perhaps the temperature it was fermented at. This I kegged yesterday while brewing Oh Vienna.

For Oh Vienna I used my grain mill for the first time. It was more of a test as originally I was not going to use any pale malt other than Vienna and Munich but I crushed 904g while testing it and specifically testing a grain chute idea I had. I will do a post on that another time but it was pretty simple.

The one hiccup was I dropped my hydrometer and it smashed so I have no FG for wheaty goodness and no SG for Oh Vienna. I just have to assume I pretty much hit my targets.

Wheaty Goodness 2

15-A Weizen/Weissbier
Author: Reuben Gray (Saruman)
Date: 09/04/2012

Size: 25.12 L
Efficiency: 75.0%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 144.02 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.043 (1.044 - 1.052)
|======#=========================|

Terminal Gravity: 1.011 (1.010 - 1.014)
|===========#====================|

Color: 21.18 (3.94 - 15.76)
|===============================#|

Alcohol: 4.26% (4.3% - 5.6%)
|=======#========================|

Bitterness: 33.2 (8.0 - 15.0)
|================================|

Ingredients:

2303 g Maris Otter Pale Ale Malt
1,006.0 g Wheat Malt
1,003.0 g Munich Malt
156 g Amber Malt
502.0 g Light Crystal
17 g Chinook (13.6%) - added during boil, boiled 60 m
23 g Cascade (7.0%) - added during boil, boiled 15 m
10 g Nelson Sauvin (12.6%) - added during boil, boiled 5 m
1 ea Whirlfloc Tablets (Irish moss) - added during boil, boiled 15 m
1 ea Danstar Munich

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.20

Oh Vienna

10-B American Amber Ale
Author: Reuben Gray (Saruman)
Date: 15/04/2012

Size: 23.04 L
Efficiency: 75.0%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 159.53 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.048 (1.045 - 1.060)
|===========#====================|

Terminal Gravity: 1.012 (1.010 - 1.015)
|==============#=================|

Color: 27.35 (19.7 - 33.49)
|================#===============|

Alcohol: 4.72% (4.5% - 6.0%)
|==========#=====================|

Bitterness: 58.4 (25.0 - 40.0)
|================================|

Ingredients:

904 g Irish Spring Barley (pale malt)
3000 g Vienna Malt
1000 g Munich Malt
244 g Crystal Malt
25 g Columbus (14.5%) - added during boil, boiled 60 m
20 g Northern Brewer (10.9%) - added during boil, boiled 30 m
45 g Saaz (2.1%) - added during boil, boiled 5 m
1 ea Fermentis S-33 SafBrew S-33

Notes

Mash 60min @ 67c

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.20

Killed by a myrcenary.

2012-04-18T20:24:00.002+01:00

I'm always getting press releases from Odell but I tend not to mention them on the blog because even though I have a large US audience, my blog is mainly geared towards Europe and the beers I can get here in Ireland. So when I decide to write about an Odell beer, it's because it actually shows up on beer shelves in this country.

This one is called Myrcenary and is named after myrcene, a component in the essential oil found in hops. They also packed this double IPA with the hops that contain the highest level of myrcene. I don't know what those hops are sorry, the tropical fruit notes lead me to believe they might be New Zealand hops like Nelson Sauvin or Rakau or something similar. There is an instant caramel hit which turns bitter with fruity hops and fresh cut grass. Plenty of tropical fruits. Lovely beer but there is no way I would spot this was 9.3% it's too smooth and the alcohol is hidden. The fact you can fill a growler of this stuff at the brewery is testament to its drinkability.

You can expect a lot more chatter from me about Odell in July as I expect I will be visiting the brewery while in Colorado for 2 weeks (3 weeks in the US).

Sorry, the title was the best I could come up with.

IHP 2012 - The end result

2012-04-15T18:02:00.001+01:00

On February 25th I brewed the this years international homebrew project beer. It was a bit of a montster project. On the fact of it, the beer is as simple as you can get. Single pale malt and a few very simple hop additions. The real kicker was the sheer volume involved. We were looking for a beer with an OG of 1.114 and that was to finish at at 1.046 to give us a 9.1% beer with 91IBU.

The recipe for a 23l batch called for nearly 12kg of grain! That would have killed my mash tun so I had to alter the recipe to suit. Beertools gave me calculations which did not look right to me but I decided to go with it and take what I got.

In the end I got an OG of 1.082 and the windsor bottomed out at 1.020 giving me a slightly lower ABV of 8.2%. There are a few reasons this could have happened. Chiefly that beertools was wrong but also I made a mistake on brewday and did not mash for the full 120mins, instead I did 90 mins.

So how did it turn out? Well I tapped the keg a number of weeks ago. I then took notes and the picture above on April 4th. The quick notes were: Sugary, caramel, some earthy hops but lost in the sweetness. It was young but I knew another couple of weeks might help it out. I have not had any in about 2 weeks now.

I reckon it's time to pour a glass and see what we get.
It's April 15th - 12:09pm

What seems to be apparent from the photo is that the beer has cleared considerably. In fact I would say that it's as clear as it will get. Holding it up to the light, I can see the glass on the other side complete with bubbles and defects in the glass. I can read the writing on the other side of the glass almost as clearly as if I were reading it on the front. The colour is a deep reddish amber which pales down to yellow at the bottom of the glass. A thick foamy/creamy head on top which does dissipate down to a thinner head leaving the glass with a thick lacing on the side.

It comes out of the keg quite cold so a quick sniff tells me that this is a sweet and sugary beer. It's very much like a Belgian tripel to be honest. There is a hint of grassiness on the nose.

On tasting, it really is a mix of bitter and sweet. The sweetness dominates and the hops have to fight through to make themselves heard. The beer is bitter but nowhere near the level I was expecting.

It's now 12:20 so I will do something else and come back to this post when the beer has warmed a little and see if it changes.

After an hour, the beer is at room temperature and a little more complexity arises, but not much. The ever present caramelised candy sweetness is still there but the grassy hops show through a little more. This is not very bitter but it does sort of coat the inside of your moth with the herbal, spicy, grassy hops.

Verdict? Well it turned out pretty well and if I had used a Belgian yeast, it would have morphed into a tripel. It was worth a go but not as impressive a beer to me as last years milk stout. I look forward to doing another one next year.

It sounds like Al had better results than I did so you should definitely read his article. He is after all, the organiser of the event. He seems to have overshot the original ABV and got 10.7%.

It sounds like I had very similar results to John.

Easterfest 2012 - Better than ever!

2012-04-09T14:45:00.000+01:00

We arrived in Cork a little after 1pm yesterday on a very warm and sunny afternoon and headed straight to the Bierhalle. I had already had a full Irish breakfast at the train station so I was still stuffed. Instead I had a pint of Howling gale (8 degrees) to get me going, a started if you will. A few minutes later, Scott from 8 degrees came in and joined us before we all headed down to the Franciscan well for the festival. There were already a few people there at about 2:15 so it was time to get started.

First up was a visit to Trouble brewing and their new Saison, a beer that was the winner of their homebrew competition and then brewed by them as the prize.

Spelt saison was submitted by Mark (Maf on Beoir) and is a 6.5% cask conditioned Saison. Perhaps the most striking feature was just how creamy and smooth it was, like a nitro-kegged stout. The 6.5% was obvious as there was a boozy quality to it but it was not harsh and in fact it was very drinkable. Lots of caramel with a hint of sour candy.

Next it was over to Metalman for the first of their new Chameleon range and sadly the only one I got to try. Chameleon is a batch of beer, a very simplistic beer recipe but it was then split into a few different batches and altered. Pacifica was dry hopped with pacific gem in the cask. You can taste that it's a simple and somewhat boring recipe in the background but first you have to get through the hops and there is a lot of them. It does not feel like a beer that is 5%, it feels more sessionable than that but it the tannic hop tea was lovely. I know it might not be to everyone's taste but I loved it. Citrus heaven.

The next one to go on was a Chilli and something version but we did not drink enough Pacifica so it only went on after we were on the train home that evening. Ah well, perhaps it will make an appearance some other time. There was also a Ginger version and a few others I don't recall.

Next it was time to visit Scott from 8 Degrees and try his new Barefoot bohemian pilsner. The beer was poured straight from the conditioning tanks where it had been lagering for about 2 months. This meant it was a little lacking in carbonation but it did not detract from the beer in any way, in fact it reminded me of unfiltered Pilsner Urquell from a wooden cask. A lovely peppery and biscuity Pilsner and would not be out of place in Prague. In fact it was one of the highlights of the festival if I'm honest.

I had a great conversation with Scott and he asked my advice on future beers they should try so I gave him a few ideas. He then went on to complain about how busy he is, a good complaint of course. Any thoughts of having a handy job brewing beer is long since gone and the reality of hard work has replaced it.

The Dungarvan stand got a fair bit of attention from me because not only did they have a beer I have not had before, and also a dry hopped version of their Copper coast red ale, they also had bar snacks. It seems that Keoghs, a hand made crisp manufacturer joined forces with Dungarvan and used their fantastic Black rock stout to make Roast beef and Irish stout flavour crisps. They were absolutely fantastic so I lingered there for a while. I highly recommend anyone who sees these crisps to buy them. I think I will have to seek them out. They created a bit of a FABPOW with the dry hopped Copper coast. Either Copper coast had a meaty smokey quality, or it was the crisps. Probably the crisps but the match was sublime. Had their not been so much other beer to drink, I would have tried the crisps with their other beers, especially Black Rock stout.

The other beer was their Comeragh Challenger which is the ultimate session beer and being International session day it was perfect. It did seem like a weaker version of Helvick Gold but it is certainly not because for one thing, it is completely hopped with, and as the name suggests, Challenger hops. It should be available in bottle from next month.

Next I was over the the Galway Hooker stand for two of their non pale ale beers. Both are currently brewed for Tigh Neachtain in Galway. Though they should be making an appearance in other pubs at some point. Nectar is the one that is new to me and to be honest I thought it was one of the best beers at the festival and certainly up there with the best beer I have ever had. Why that is I can't truly say though. At 4.5% it straddles the border of session beer and the strong flavour probably makes it less of a session beer than something like Comeragh challenger. It's a very caramel malt driven beer with a similar creaminess to Spelt saison. The surprising thing is the hop level, there are lots of hops in this beer, something needed to balance that strong caramel malt backbone. It left me gagging for more.

Opus II is their dark wheat beer. This I have had before but not on cask, although I did have a previous Hooker dark wheat on cast two years previous. Unlike the kegged product, which is almost black and looks like a stout, the cask version is a murky brown. It looks like glass of muddy water. Boy does it taste good though. Packed full of rich milk chocolate. Actually it does rather look like a glass of creamy hot chocolate. I tried both with and without the sparkler and the non sparkled version worked a little better from the mouthfeel perspective, though the flavour was identical.

Word is that Aidan will be more adventurous soon and maybe finally do a dry hopped version of the pale ale. I can't wait. I would love to try dry hopped Hooker pale ale on cask.

I moved to lovely young ladies from the UCC brewery who brew commercially soley for beer festivals. Usually the beer is bottom fermented and called Hansel and Grettel. This year they picked a darker pair and called it Max and Moritz. Max is the wheat beer and it's a very tasty and bog standard German style hefeweizen, full of clove and banana. Moritz is the *~~Pilsner~~ Kölsch style beer.~~and interestinfly both beers are top fermented this year making the Pilsner an al~~e. ~~Somehow it tastes like a German lager though~~. It was crisp and clean and citrusy. A very nice beer and quite a surprise. Not pictured above is a lovely girl from Finland who talked to me about the beer and confirmed the top fermentation.

Later in the evening, towards 7pm the crowd got fairly thick and I know from previous years that by 8pm or so, there can be a queue to get in. Beoir members arriving at this time can skip the queue if they have their T-Shirts on so it pays to invest €10 (for members) on a T-Shirt. I had John (Beoir treasurer) bring down another one (burgandy) for me to add to my collection (I have 3 now I think). The newer version is a much better quality material.

Having tasted everything I wanted to taste that was new to me, I was able to just wander around and drink regular beer, have a chat with people, eat some fantastic Pizza from the wood fired oven before heading for the train at 8pm. Scott had said he would give us some bottles for the train ride home.

He was true to his word and we had two 6 packs and an 8 degrees branded glass (to add to me glassware collection). We had a very enjoyable train ride home as you can imagine.We may have been knacker drinking on the train but we doing it with class.

The day was only ruined by the Citylink driver failing to stop for me, even though it was pre-booked for that time and stop. He blew by Houston station after I had waited an hour for the bus to arrive and I was forced to spend the night in Dublin. A very strongly worded email was sent when I finally got home as well as angry twitter messages last night. Reading back, I must have been shaking with rage if the typos are anything to go by.

So Beer of the festival? It's very hard this year because there are some great contenders.

I would have to give 8 Degrees a well deserved first runner up for Barefoot bohemian pilsner.
Second runner up to Metalman for their lovely Pacifica Chameleon. I hope to try the rest!
And I think for me, the number one beer of the festival was Galway Hooker with Nectar.

Thanks to everyone who gave me freebies, it is always appreciated. Especially since the cost of getting to the event set me back about €90 and saw me getting up at 6:15am to start the journey.

And a big thank's to all the brewers for being like a close nit family. Beer festivals like this always have a real family reunion feel about them rather than a commercial venture.

* EDIT: I was contacted by Jean from UCC who along with her Farther, brewed both Max and Moritz and pointed out that Moritz is actually a Kölsch style beer and not a top fermented Pilsner. It just can't be called a Kölsch because it is now a protected term. That certainly explains a lot.

The Session #62 - Why I write about beer.

2012-04-08T15:24:00.003+01:00

This month's session is hosted by Brewpublic and asks the question: Why do you blog? What's the point? Why do we do it? Well the answer to none of those questions is 42, however it is much much simpler than that. The answer is CH3CH2OH... no just kidding, though that does help.

We, or at least I, and I suspect most others do it because we simply love beer. Specifically we love good beer, beer that has been lovingly hand crafted. Beer that is local to a community and is not some faceless factory turning out a product at the push of a few buttons.

I simply love good beer. I love the complexity and I love sociability of beer.

Today* I am heading to cork, so adding to this post while on a bus (07:15) to Dublin in order to get a train to Cork. Why you may ask? Well because there is a beer festival on. Why else?
A beer festival has the same answer. Why go to a beer festival when I can sit comfortably in a pub and drink all I like? The answer is that at a festival, more so than a pub, I will meet like minded people with a passion for good beer. It also helps that the breweries themselves will be there to talk to as well as with new and one off brews sometimes. I'm doing it in one day so will be back in Westmeath sometime after 1am. That's dedication I think. Another reason to go to the beer festival is of course for material for my blog. I don't always blog about beer festivals but I do for many of them that I attend.

The epitome of why I blog can be found web attending the beer bloggers conference. I attended last year and if ever you needed motivation, here it was in the form of how much respect we got from breweries. Not just the small breweries either. Small breweries pretty much rely on beer writers for promoting their beer. It was interesting to see such a mega brewer as molson coors encouraging us and even though we don't usually blog about their core range of beers, we enhance the industry as a whole and keep the world focused on beer, a declining product in many countries. And that's why large companies like Molson Coors are happy to sponsor the conference. It also helps that we have nice things to say about their smaller brands like Sharp's and Worthington White Shield.

A good thing about being a beer writer is that it opens up avenues with brewers that I might not have otherwise.
I spent the day at Easterfest in Cork yesterday*, my favourite beer festival of the year and while some of the breweries were absent this year, The Northern breweries in particular, I do think that this year was possibly the best and most exciting Easterfest I have been to. I had a great time talking to as many brewers as I could about their beer, with brewers giving me freebies (always nice) and generally just being really down to earth people who love to talk about their beer. You can expect my report on the festival tomorrow.

So why do I write about beer? I think the answer is pretty obvious if you have read this whole post. I do it because love beer and want to promote good beer as much as possible because the little guy has no one to promote them other than people like me.

* This post was written over the course of a few days if you didn't get that.

And now for something completely different....

2012-04-06T14:44:00.002+01:00

It's good Friday in Ireland today, a sort of unofficial public holiday. Half the country is off, perhaps more than half. The rest of us are working. Since most of my customers are off, I have very little to do.

There are no alcohol sales allowed today so there is little point in talking about beer. So for something very different, let's talk about Hula Hoops. Sure why not? Don't they count as bar snacks after all?

On the front of my bag of Hula Hoops I saw that there is a free music download with every pack. Curious I of course took a look at the back. It seems that the code is visible below the best before date meaning no purchase necessary. I also read the part in the image that I highlighted. It states:

"There's no catch and you won't have to enter any personal details."

So I went online and took a look at the website. I was instantly assaulted with a popup looking for me to register with my email address. How the hell is that no entering personal details? It also clearly states on the screen that there is a limit to 30 tracks per email address. How the hell is this not a catch?

Anyway rant aside, tomorrow I am heading to Cork for Easterfest at the Franciscan Well. That should be fun, it always is.

Whacking my wheat at home.

2012-04-05T19:51:00.001+01:00

It's not quite as disgusting as the title suggests, actually it's bloody lovely. Wheat wacker comes to us from Black Diamond, a brewery I always enjoy but never seem to drink enough of their stuff for some reason. Maybe it's the import prices, the same reason I tend not to buy a lot of American beer. I buy plenty of US beer in Ireland but it tends to be one off bottles as opposed to buying it regularly because pf the price and usually the small bottles. No problem here because Wheat wacker comes in a respectable 660ml bottle, something that needs to be remembered because it's too much to fit in a pint glass. When recycling the bottle the other day I found I had left the rest and forgotten about it. I felt like crying.

Now on to the beer. What the hell is an India wheat ale anyway? Well the fact is, I brewed one before and here is what happened.

My first taste test can be read here but I felt it was infected. Here is the recipe if you are interested.
It started out being very odd and sour, it really tasted infected. After a few weeks in the keg though it mellowed out and because a beautiful and refreshing beer that had a Berliner Weisse like sourness, though having never had Berliner Weisse I can't say for certain.

Anyway, why am I talking about my homebrew? Well it's simply because not only is Wheat wacker the same style as Wheaty goodness, it turns out they taste remarkably similar so it's very likely now that my beer was never infected at all. It looks likely that the sourness was a result of the mixing of a wheat beer base (malt and yeast) with the hops of an IPA. In my case I used Rakau for aroma at the end of the boil, which is a high alpha acid hop that imparts tropical fruit flavours as well as more traditional citrusy notes you get from Cascade or Amarillo etc.

It might also have something to do with fermenting warm to get the esters from the yeast.

I will be buying more of this I reckon, well assuming it makes another appearance over here. At the very least I reckon it's time to try something similar again at home.

Brew #43 Cascading Amarillo V2

2012-04-01T16:41:00.000+01:00

A few weeks ago I brewed Cascading Amarillo, an APA with Cascade and Amarillo hops. Last weekend I altered the recipe and brewed a similar beer. While I was going to just brew the same beer and see how my consistency was, I did not have enough Amarillo so I altered the recipe to take that into account. It will be interesting to see how it turns out. I do love Nelson Sauvin, it's one of my favourite hops so it should be interesting to see if it makes a difference.

The one week taste test of Cascading Amarillo (I had two bottles after kegging) is as follows, and bear in mind that I dry hopped the keg so the bottle will be lacking in aroma: The aroma is strong citrus. Grapefruit, lemon and maybe a touch of orange. Plenty of orange in the taste and a fairly impressive bitterness. It's still a little green of course, having only been in the bottle for 7 days so another week or two will see the keg right I reckon. I don't want to age it too long or I will start to lose the hop freshness.

There is one slight difference to V2 compared to any other beer I have ever done. If you notice the yeast has a quantity of 0. That's because I decided that since it's almost the same beer, I would just keg the first batch, pour the top layer of yeast down the drain and then rack the new beer on top. Perhaps not the most scientific way of re-using yeast but within a few hours the blow-off tube was bubbling away so the yeast was alive and well. Perhaps this second generation will bring something from the first brew to the new batch?
I will probably keg V2 next week. Two weeks fermenting is the same amount of time I gave Cascading Amarillo.

Cascading Amarillo V2

14-B American IPA
Author: Reuben Gray
Date: 25/03/2012

Size: 23.04 L
Efficiency: 71.2%
Attenuation: 81.0%
Calories: 131.11 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.040 (1.056 - 1.075)
|================================|

Terminal Gravity: 1.008 (1.010 - 1.018)
|===#============================|

Color: 8.88 (11.82 - 29.55)
|=====#==========================|

Alcohol: 4.23% (5.5% - 7.5%)
|================================|

Bitterness: 66.3 (40.0 - 70.0)
|======================#=========|

Ingredients:

3600 g Maris Otter Pale Ale Malt
727 g CaraPils Malt (brupaks)
126.0 g Light Crystal
33 g Amarillo (11.2%) - added during boil, boiled 60 m
19 g Cascade (7.0%) - added during boil, boiled 30 m
33 g Cascade (7.0%) - added during boil, boiled 15 m
14 g Nelson Sauvin (12.6%) - added during boil, boiled 5 m
25 g Cascade (7.0%) Keg
0.0 ea Fermentis US-05 Safale US-05

Dutch sweet-tooth.

2012-03-30T14:52:00.002+01:00

De Molen's Bommen and Granaten is a 15.2% beer, essentially a barleywine I suppose. The aroma was pure prune juice with a hint of the alcohol. Some brown sugar and figs. It also appears quite oily.
It tastes pretty much like the aroma with prunes dominating. There is plenty of caramel in the body and it is incredibly sweet. I can imagine dental hygienists being horrified by this beer. There is almost no hop presence whatsoever.
This is not a beer to swill with your mates. In fact, don't let them anywhere near the bottle unless it's only one or two and they are happy to share the bottle and sip it for an hour.
It's a lovely beer but perhaps a little on the sweet side for my taste.
I really want to get to their restaurant some day. I imagine I could spend the best part of a day there eating and drinking myself to bursting.

Dublin is the best drinking destination - In the world!

2012-03-25T11:52:00.000+01:00

I can just imagine Jeremy Clarkson saying that, can't you? Seriously though, google best beer cities in the world or any variation of that and you will find plenty of listings. Most of them list the same cities like Munich or Berlin, Prague, Portland, London, Brussels but you can always be guaranteed that Dublin is not only in the list, it is also in the top ten. Often it is number three and sometimes number one. You can also be guaranteed that the picture and spiel as to why it was chosen mentions Guinness. Often it is the only reason, though some at least choose to mention some of our other good drinking establishments, like Porterhouse.
Some even get it very wrong and say:

visitors to Dublin know that it's best consumed at the source, served up from a cask at one of the city's classic pubs.

If only the cask part were true, Guinness might have a little more respect among beer geeks than it does now. They do make some great products, they are just less flavoursome than their craft beer counterparts.

A new pub has just opened in Dublin, it's the sister to L Mulligan Grocer, one of the best places to drink north of the Liffey. This one is called W. J. Kavanagh's and is also on the Northside. I have not been in yet but rest assured I will soon enough and do a proper write-up. This got me thinking though. The Black Sheep has also recently opened and Kate's Cottage is about to become a craft beer haven as well.

You don't have to go to one of the specialist beer bars/pubs either because many regular pubs have caught on to the craft beer revolution and have a couple of taps and maybe some bottled beer available. In many cases it is flying out the door as more and more people crave something different than the faceless mass produced beer they have been forced to drink for decades.

In the past, Dublin has always been one of the best places to drink in a pub. The beer choice was non existent and every pub served the same beer but the atmosphere was what made it special. Today, the same is true except you can hardly walk 50 metres in the city centre without finding somewhere serving some decent beer, and the list of specialist beer bars has got to the stage that doing a pub crawl of them all might be very bad for your liver.

And don't just stick to the city centre, hop on the dart and explore the coastal suburban towns of Dublin. Not only will you find some great pubs serving good beer, albeit less often than the city centre, you will views of some breathtaking scenery, especially on the southern dart line towards Bray. The scenery is common place to Dubliners but it often shocks visitors. Especially on a bright and sunny day (like today), there are few places I would rather be than Dublin. That said, I will be in Denver this summer so that might change.

This means that Dublin is finally; fully deserving of a place in the best drinking or best beer cities in the world. And possibly at number one even? Well that depends on the person really. I would say probably not number one but certainly up there with the best.

Although be sure to make the trip to Cork, Galway and perhaps Belfast because they are also fantastic drinking cities.

If you are considering a visit to Dublin, a full list of the ever growing number of pubs/restaurants serving decent beer is available on the Beoir directory and also there's an app for that. Android users will soon have the same feature but for now, the release candidate is here. The apps/directory cover all of Ireland.

The black sheep - Dublin - It's Certainly not being shunned by punters.

2012-03-21T12:22:00.001Z

The good people behind The Oslo, The Cottage and The Salthouse in Galway have done it again. Like when they took the corner of death on Wexford street and turned it into one of the best drinking establishments in Dublin, they have done it again North of the liffey on Capel street.
The location has been home to such places as The Living Room, The DeLux and The Bleu Note. I don't think it will be changing any time soon, not the way these guys run a bar.

The Black Sheep is very similar to ATG except it's a little bit smaller. It shares a similar feel, a shared atmosphere if you will. The décor is similar with farmhouse kitchen style table and chairs. Board games are available to play and there is no television to distract from talking. Music is played at a low level, though it can still be hard to hear because all those people talking at once creates its own noise. Still the atmosphere is excellent and relaxed.

There is a wall that splits the bar in two and I am not sure of its function. Perhaps it simply holds the roof up but it looks like it takes a lot of space away from the already small bar.

The other side of the partition is pretty much the same. The bar itself is split by the partition.
I only noticed the one flood, I don't think there is an upstairs like ATG but I could be wrong on that one.

The main thing is the beer, that's what you are going for after all. As you would expect, they have a fantastic range of kegged beer on tap and barely a drop of macro stuff to be seen, except Blue Moon (Coors) and this is a decent enough beer to be honest, at least on tap. I don't care for the bottled version much. While I might not drink Blue Moon, enough people will and it has flavour unlike many other mass produced beers.

Another feature is the food. I very much enjoyed my fish (hake) and chips. The fish was as soft as air and the mushy peas were lovely and generous. The chips (fries) came stacked like a game of jenga, the big slightly overdone almost potato wedge type I love, similar to the Bull and Castle. I should have taken a picture actually. Actually a game of Jenga using such chips intrigues me....