The Tale Of The Ale

Guinness Nitrosurge Device - Does it work?

2021-09-18T13:30:00.023+01:00

Guinness sent this little gizmo to me along with two cans and a glass. I attended a zoom demo and then later tried it myself and made a video which I've now uploaded onto YouTube. Please feel free to take a look or read below to see what I think.

It does seem to do what they want it to do, namely it replicates the Guinness two part pour experience in a pub but the main thing is that you can achieve a creamy dome head which I believe is a first for any home version of Guinness.

It's no good for normal cans of beer as it just gives you a massive Belgian style head and lowers the overall carbonation in the beer. I suspect the results of using it on a normal widget style can of Guinness would be equally disappointing.

The device isn't aimed at someone like myself. I don't drink Guinness at home and while it is my macro beer of choice when choice is not available to me, I'm never going to pick Guinness over a pint of independent Irish beer like Trouble Ambush or Dark Arts to name but two.

For those that are loyal Guinness drinkers and do want to have as close to a pub pint at home as possible, this is probably for them. I wonder would it have a place in small restaurants with no space for draught beer. It would add some theatre to a meal I suppose, much like the opening of a bottle of wine and sniffing the cork.

Cheers to Guinness for sending me the sample, I'll be passing it on to a friend who loves a good pint of Guinness.

They of course did not pay me for this, I never accept money or do sponsored reviews.

Brewery and Distillery Visits with BYO Magazine

2021-09-16T12:21:00.000+01:00

Middleton Distillery

Anyone who has been homebrewing for any length of time will know of the American Homebrew Magazine: Brew Your Own (BYO). It has been going since 1995, when I was still in school. They had arranged a trip to Ireland last year for their subscribers and I was asked to help out as a local guide.

Then, Covid hit and the trip was postponed until the end of August this year. I was only too happy to provide my services. BYO usually get Zephyr Adventures in Colorado to organise their trips and Zephyr used to run the European Beer Bloggers conferences. I myself helped organise the Dublin conference in 2014 which is why they asked me to be involved. Aaron was the group leader for Zephyr and I was the local guide and backup driver along with Brad from BYO and 6 tour guests. We all squeezed into a VW 9 seater van, luggage and all.

It didn't hurt that I had plenty of holidays to take from last year so it wouldn't interfere with any other holiday plans I had.

We kicked off in Dublin on Friday afternoon where I led them on a brief walking tour of Dublin before heading to the obligatory Guinness Storehouse and then Open Gate Brewery before going to Porterhouse Temple Bar for a wonderful dinner and drinks. There was an interesting debate over which stout was best: Plain Porter, Stout (formerly Oyster) or XXXX (Wrasslers). I of course ordered a Wrasslers and a Yippy IPA and let my Wrasslers warm up before drinking it. The one complaint about PH bars is their stouts are always too cold for my liking,

The next morning, we hit the road and headed to Kilkenny. They were booked in to the castle and then they had time for a brief walk around the city. the market was on so I had the best Mexican tacos I can recall. We had a beer tasting at Sullivan's in their amazing beer garden complete with individual sheds.

Technically this was a Brewery/Distillery and Hiking tour so we next headed to the Comeragh mountains for a short hike up to Mahon Falls before heading to Waterford. Originally we were to do a longer hike but time was against us to make it to our next stop.

Next stop was Metalman in Waterford city where Tim took time out of his day off to show us around the brewery and treat us all to some amazing Metalman beer.

That night we ate at The Reg where we enjoyed Metalman by the pint before retiring to the hotel. I had eaten there a few weeks beforehand, outside when it was balmy and still very warm after dark. We headed back to the hotel through the old streets by way of Tully's who unfortunately had already taken last orders. This was a common theme of the restricted opening times, last orders were usually around 10:30 to 10:45 because kicking out time was 11:30 on the dot. Thank you Covid!

On Sunday morning, we headed to Middleton to visit the massive Middleton Distillery where Irish Distillers make their wonderful range of whiskeys.

They also keep their Method and Madness micro distillery here and that's part of the tour. We don't actually get to see the full size distillery as that's always in operation.

Anyway, that picture up above is of me filling a bottle of cask strength Black Barrel edition Jameson for myself. I mean, the ticket gave me €5 off any purchase so I'd have been mad not to right?

After a hike at nearby Ballycotton along the cliff walk, we headed to Cork city for the evening. We ate at Market Lane drinking Elbow Lane beer from next door. Unfortunately Elbow Lane itself was too small for our group of 9 but at least they still had the beer. Then later, we visited Rising Son's for a few beers before heading back to the guesthouse.

On Monday, we headed to Blarney castle, that was their "hiking" part of the tour that day. They kissed the sanitised Blarney Stone and explored the beautiful grounds. The two people who came with me got my "local knowledge" of such delights as The Witches Kitchen, Dolmen and The Fairy Glen which no one else was able to find.

After that, it was west again to 9 White Deer brewery in Ballyvourney. While I've had the beer many times and have known Gordon for years, I'd never seen this brewery, only his original home setup in his garage years ago before he went pro.

From an organisation point of view, this was different. Gordon himself has been a long time reader of the magazine and when he saw the trip being advertised in the magazine, begged them to come visit him at the brewery. So this was the one stop we didn't need to arrange ourselves.

The next stop was Killarney where I dropped them off at Ross Castle to board a boat which would take them to the far side of the lake. They would then hike the Gap of Dunloe. I had a few hours to kill so I went to the hotel and checked everyone in and dropped their luggage to their rooms. I don't envy the job of a room porter, those bags were heavy and I needed two runs with the luggage cart.

I then picked up some ice to chill two growlers of my own homebrew because there had to be some homebrew on the trip somewhere. Since Covid made meeting other homebrewers a challenge, this was the best I could do. So I met them up near the gap and we had refreshments while being eaten alive by a swarm of midges.

That evening, we had dinner at a local restaurant along with some bottles of Killarney Brewing beer. The original plan was the brewery itself but it was unable to open that evening for food and drink so an alternative had to be found.

The next day (Tuesday) we headed off to the Dingle peninsula. Our hike was the three peaks of Annascaul, a charming village known for Tom Crean and also a former annual beer festival which I unfortunately never got to visit.

The Three Peaks walk is only about a 7km loop but it has a few challenging points. The view at the top is worth it, as is the welcome breeze. Just a note, depending on which way you go, you can either head up past the back of the church for an easier start but steep descent or in the opposite direction for a challenging, steep ascent and leisurely descent. We picked the easier option.

Next, we headed to the lovely Tig Bhric pub to see the compact little brewery, West Kerry Brewing. This was a real highlight of the tip because the brewing style used here is unlike anything they are familiar with. It's really homebrew on a larger scale but the partial open fermentation, which is a very English style threw them and they worried about infection etc.

When we were brought into the pub to taste the beers, Daniel (head brewer above) served us samples of everything available and they were blown away by how clean the beers were. A few of us purchased their new Gruit and glass pack which was prominently displayed on the bar counter. I look forward to trying that.

Afterwards, we headed to Dingle itself for a spot of lunch and some tourist shopping, though I took one couple to Dick Mack's brewery to tick off another brewery. I had them stick their head in the former milking shed to take a look before they ordered beers in the beer garden.

Next, we headed up to the lookout area of the Conor Pass to sample some Dingle whiskey. We were originally to visit the distillery but it hasn't re-opened yet as they took the opportunity during Covid to do some works. The view's better up here anyway. As designated driver, I'd have to wait until later that evening to try some. I hadn't had Batch 5 yet which appears to be similar to the new standard release except it was also finished in Madeira along with PX and Bourbon casks.

Our next destination was Limerick where we checked into the hotel and headed to dinner at a pub/restaurant on the Shannon. We then headed to Crew Brewing, a new brewpub that opened up around the corner from Mother Mac's during the pandemic.

I absolutely loved this place and the beer was all exceptional too. There was also a great buzz about the place both indoors and outside. Being a weekday evening, it was starting to get quiet which suited our group.

Since this was a completely new brewery to me, I of course ordered a sample of everything. One thing to note, they don't do a traditional sample tray so it's a half pint of everything. Since they had 5 of their own beers on tap, that's a 2 and a half pint commitment. Hey, I'd been driving all day so I was committed! And I wasn't driving the next morning either. Next, those of us willing to stay up a little longer headed to Mother Mac's for a pint.

This photo is from Brad at BYO

The next day, we headed to The Cliffs of Moher for our walking portion. It was 10am and there were very few people there at that time on a Wednesday morning. It was also the calmest I've ever seen them. The Atlantic was almost mirror calm and there wasn't a puff of wind. By the time we got back to the car, bus loads of people had arrived and the cliffs were getting busier on the walk back so we were glad we had come out earlier.

The Burren Brewery was our next stop where Peter entertained us for a couple of hours of pretty much non stop stories. The man is fascinating and while I've met him a couple of times before, I've never met him in a group where he had a captive audience. To say he was in his element is an understatement. We had the tasting in their attached Burren Storehouse venue, they should just stick Peter on that stage and let him tell his life story. I feel we didn't quite hear it all. A few of us bought t-shirts to help support them in any way we can. The beer of course is amazing, I was only there a few weeks beforehand.

Next stop was Galway for a visit to the Galway Bay Brewery. The outside is like many Irish breweries in industrial areas, unassuming and not very obvious what it is. I suspect that's on purpose, don't want to advertise to the natives when you don't actually open to the public.

When I said to Tom that I hadn't been to this version of the brewery, he reminded me that no one has. They only moved in at the end of 2019 and then the pandemic hit so they haven't really had a visiting group until now. Thankfully the brewery was in full production so we got to see things happening such as line cleaning and so on.

The brewery is on another level when it comes to scale and it was by far the biggest brewery we had visited on the whole trip. We won't count Guinness as they didn't see the brewery itself and this is many times the size of Open Gate. In Irish terms, this is a big brewery. It's not a patch on the likes of Sierra Nevada and other large craft breweries in the US but it was still an impressive operation.

It was also by far the cleanest brewery we had visited. Everything was spotless, except the oak barrels of course. When we arrived, Tom was busy cleaning the floor for us as they had been cleaning out fermenters before we arrived.

We got to try some of the beer direct from the tanks before moving on to cans of brewery fresh Galway Bay Beer. We took some beer around the brewery to see the whole operation. It was especially impressive seeing all the barrels of wood ageing beer cornered away. At first you look at the wall of barrels and think that's pretty cool but then we go to other rooms and find more barrels and then even more rooms.

Some are Galway Bay branded beers and then others are Tom's own Land and Labour brand of wild fermented beers, including the above Crimson which is a kriek framboise blend that was brand new and would only be leaving the brewery the next day. That means we got the first samples the day before release, what an honour. To say we were impressed with the beer is an understatement. That reminds me, I need to find some bottles to purchase before they are out of stock everywhere. *Note, just ordered some from The Beer Club as they had stock.

On a sidenote, a few weeks before I was in Galway eating at Aniar restaurant and they had Tom's Screaming Trees Nordic ale in bottle. When I tweeted it, he hadn't even been aware they were stocking it. Aniar is one of Ireland's best Michelin star restaurants so it speaks highly that they chose to serve it. It's certainly a beer for food pairing.

As always with a tour like this, time was always against us. I'd have loved to have taken them to the Galway Hooker brewery which is pretty much around the corner but there was only time for one brewery visit.

That was it for that day really, we had dinner at Dela restaurant that night (next to Aniar) which was absolutely wonderful. We then had our last drinks at Bierhaus before retiring to the hotel for the night.

The next day (day 7) was just a stop off at Kilbeggan distillery where I took over driving to allow Aaron enjoy the whiskey samples, all of which I've had many times.

Then I dropped people to the airport or their hotels and that was it, trip over and job done and since it was only Thursday afternoon, I could enjoy a long weekend catching up on lost sleep.

Thanks to all of the very accommodating breweries for hosting us, despite not usually being open to the public. And thanks to BYO and Zephyr Adventures for thinking of Ireland to do a trip.

Also a big thanks to the group that stuck with it and didn't allow the trip to be cancelled. I believe we should have had twice the number but half had to cancel when it was pushed back by a year.

For anyone reading this that would like to have a similar type of experience, there's an experienced tour company in Ireland that specialises in brewery and distillery tours called Brewery Hops so I recommend contacting them now that Ireland has opened up for business again to international travel. I'm sure after the pandemic shutdown, they would appreciate the business.

Metalman Brewing - Ten Years Strong

2021-05-10T18:05:00.004+01:00

Usually when it's someone's birthday, they receive gifts from friends but in this case, Metalman sent me a gift of some beer for their birthday. It really doesn't seem like 10 years ago that I was having homebrewed beer with brewery owners Grainne and Tim at The Bull and Castle in Dublin, essentially providing market research for their plans to start a brewery. There was a lot of "market research" back on those days.....

After many versions of pale ale at the homebrew meetups, Metalman launched with their Metalman Pale Ale and really helped kick off Ireland's love of pale ales after Galway Hooker and O'Hara's before them. Metalman pale ale was a bit different than the others. It was more new world than the others which had always been more of a hybrid between Irish, British and American. Metalman pale ale was an American style pale ale, plain and simple.

A decade later and Metalman have launched a birthday beer to celebrate, aptly named Decade. If I'm honest, I cracked this open with a little trepidation because many cherry beers are sickly sweet to me or taste like cherry coke.

I needn't have worried, Decade might have the words Tart Cherry in a large font but it's the coffee porter that's important here. What we have is a beautifully balanced coffee porter using locally roasted Waterford coffee from Coffee House Lane. On the nose, there's a whiff of smoke which reminded me of Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier and then lots of coffee.

There's no smoke in the beer itself so I suspect it was something from the coffee aroma I was picking up. The cherries provide more of a tartness than any real cherry flavour. Anyone who's ever eaten a real cherry knows they are not a sweet fruit so where the fake cherry flavour we associate with cherry comes from, I don't know.

You know when you drink certain coffee blends, they can have an acidic tartness that reminds you of redcurrants or cranberries? That's what the cherry does here, accentuates the coffee. I cracked open some Madagascan 70% dark chocolate (Lidl) to pair it with and the result was exceptional, try it if you don't believe me.

The other new beer they sent me was Giant Molecular Clouds which is a 5.8% NEIPA. It's part of their new Galactic Voyager Series. As with most NEIPAs, this is all about the unfiltered base beer with lots of juicy aroma hops. Thankfully they've supplied enough bittering hops that it doesn't taste like fizzy Capri Sun like some NEIPAs can. It's tropical fruits with a velvety mouthfeel. A cracker of a beer and one that deserves to be in a pint glass in a pub.

It looks like there's a couple more beers coming in the Galactic Voyager Series. One thing I've spotted is the new logo. I'll have to ask now is that just for this series or are we looking at a new branding exercise?

Hey Bru

2021-04-02T20:40:00.001+01:00

Brú have been knocking around for years, I actually attended a food and beer party at the brewery in 2014 which as I recall involved a lot of stout and chocolate ice cream pairing. Yeah sure, there were other pairings but the stout and ice cream was the winner for me.

The one thing that always struck me about Brú in the past was that they were great at contract brewing beer for other brands but never really pushed their own beyond the core range.

In late 2019, Brú and Carrig Brewing merged. Carrig operations moved from Drumshanbo to the larger Brú facility in Trim and with Carrig came some venues such as the brilliant Bar Rúa in Dublin and the restaurant next door.

Brú splits their range into two groups, the Urban Jungle range which is your more adventurous stuff and then the core range which is your more traditional, recognisable and accessible styles.

I'll start with the Urban Jungle series as I was able to pick these up at the Londis across the street. They seem to have a random selection of the Urban Jungle series in stock recently so when I see them, I grab some.

Kicking off this Hop Bomb, a 5.5% IPA. This beer has what they describe as a rotating hop profile. This can has a 2 printed on the hop symbol and best before Feb 22 so I imagine it was brewed in February 21. The can has a Hoppy and Malty slider printed on it and in this case, the hops are all the way to the right and the malt all the way to the left. That's bang on actually. In bittering terms, it reminds me of the super dry hopped IPAs we used to get years ago. There's no escaping it and I love that in your face bitterness. There's little attempt to have a malt backbone, just a bit of biscuit and the barest hint of caramel. There's just no messing around here. Personally I would like just a little more body, a tiny bit more malt just to balance it out . There is sweetness to provide balance but it's not particularly malt driven.

Too many hops? Don't be ridiculous, there can never be too many hops!

Next up is a 7% pastry stout called Panda Nero. While I like pastry stouts, I can only stomach them in small doses due to the sweetness but I was pleasantly surprised that a beer described as a tiramisu dessert stout was rather more like a relatively bitter coffee stout with a bit of steamed milk thrown in.

I really enjoyed this one and if the battered can is anything to go by, there was either a huge rush at the Londis to grab this one or else it was accidentally included in a shipment of something else. Either way, it was the only can there when I picked it up. If I see it again*, I will certainly be grabbing one.

*Just to be clear, the local Londis is for emergency beer, that's not where I shop when restocking my beer fridge.

By far my favourite of the Urban Jungle range so far is Osiris, a 6.2% IPA. This is more of your modern NEIPA-esque IPA except there's plenty of bitterness to balance out that juice. Just buy and drink it if you see it.

The next three are the core range that have gone from bottles to cans recently. These were kindly sent to me to sample by the brewery.

Brú Lager is your typical 4.2% lager on the face of it. Slightly biscuity with a bit of a spicy character. There's no head beyond a brief fizz which is the only odd thing. It reminded me of a Kolsch actually and that's high praise to be honest. I very much forward to getting back to Cologne for Christmas markets when normality returns. I expect I'll be picking up more of these over the summer.

Brú Red Ale is again a typical 4.2% Irish red ale. The malt is delivered with a slight biscuit and caramel note and then it's a little more bitter than most. It's decent and clearly aimed to tempt Smithwicks drinkers to something more interesting but still in their comfort zone.

And finally the Brú IPA which is again a fairly typical 5% using mostly traditional American IPA hops like cascade and Centennial. The result is familiar and nostalgic. Bitter up front with a whack of grapefruit and pine. It reminds me of the IPAs we all drank 10 years ago and I often miss them due to all of the cloudy fruit bombs we get these days.

That said, if I'm going for an IPA myself, I'd probably pick Osiris at the moment.

Thanks to Bru for sending on the core range to try.

Oh, if you're wondering about the title, Hey Bru is a South African greeting with Bru simply meaning Bro/brother.

Grand Stretch in the Evening

2021-03-12T16:49:00.000+00:00

Spring is in the air and the sun is still up when I'm finished work these days so the odd beer on the balcony after a cycle is starting to become a thing again. That lovely pint is the wonderful Rheinbacher Pils from Aldi, though I've seen it in Supervalu too.

One of the best newer beers from Brú is Osiris IPA. It's a hefty 6.2% but seriously fresh. I recall reading The Beer Nut having a less enjoyable experience when it was released nearly a year ago but this was my first time trying it and I thought it was excellent. Whatever the initial issue was must have been resolved.

It's not trying to be a NEIPA, more an unfiltered IPA but it has the best qualities of both. There's a rich exotic juiciness with a great balance of chewy biscuit malt and decent bittering levels. The result is a fresh and clean IPA with a perfect balance. I'll be picking up more of this. By the way, the 4 cans came with the Smash burger deal from 57 The Headline 7 The Headline. Looks like this week it's back to Boom, always great because you get to say Smash and Boom in the same sentence.

Galway Bay rarely miss a beat when it comes to new beer releases and this is no exception. Voyager NZ is a 6.5% IPA highlighting my all time favourite hop, Nelson Sauvin. Sure, there's also Motueka in there but that classic Nelson Sauvin grapey citrus note that reminds me of cool glass of Cloud Bay Sauvignon Blanc is unmistakeable. There's a fresh dankness here too. Pints! I want pints of this!!!! Feckin Covid lockdown.....

Spring might be in the air but it's still cold and sometimes stormy out at the moment. Whiplash's The Ocean Wide is a brown ale, a style that brings up nostalgic tears to many of us at the moment when doing our Zoom calls. At 6.8%, this is not your average sessionable brown ale. Also, you tend not to put maple syrup in most brown ales. There's something about Fungi the dolphin (RIP-probably) but I'm not sure why the maple syrup? Some kind of pancake reference?

Anyway, its sweet yes but not sweet enough to pour on your pancakes thanks to some generous hopping. It reminded me more of an American brown ale with lots of coffee notes and random syrup thrown in for the craic. Lovely beer as a one off but give me a decent, traditional brown ale any day.

Whiplash are just taking the piss with this one. Fakey Cake Maker - Silly Stout is, well not something one can quantify in BJCP terms. It's not a new beer either, I'm sure I had this a couple of years ago on tap but this is the first time I've had it at home.

It tastes rather like liquid cake with coconut really shining through though not so much of the hazelnuts I'm afraid. I bought two of them and enjoyed them both but sweet pastry stouts like this are not my thing usually. They make a great nightcap though.

From Stone Barrel is Spectre Porter, a no-nonsense 5.5% porter. No gimmicks, just pure drinking pleasure. It's incredibly creamy, almost like it has been nitrogenated. There's a hint of cappuccino going on here with a little chocolate on top but it's superbly bitter at the same time.

That's the roundup of recent beers I've enjoyed. As the weather warms, I suspect a few more post cycle pints of Rheinbacher on the balcony.

Treaty City Rebrand

2021-02-26T16:24:00.001+00:00

I think 2020 saw a number of breweries go through a re-brand, and sure why not considering the on-premise market has essentially dried up thanks to Covid. Grabbing shelf attention is more important than ever.

I spotted Treaty City had gone all colourful and now can so decided to pick some up. I visited the original brewery in 2017 but they have since moved into Limerick city centre which saves on the short walk out to the industrial park outskirts where I believe the main production brewery remains.

Speaking of Covid, 'Rona G'Way is a 3.9% juicy IPA but perhaps not the freshest as I reckon this came out in June 2020 and I missed it at the time. This was all lemon citrus and more bitter than juicy if I'm honest but despite that, and being a little bit on the thin side, I really enjoyed this one. That lemon hit was very refreshing and I can imagine during the rather pleasant June weather, it would have been a great thirst quencher.

Outcast is the new Juicy IPA and a whole percent lower. It's descried as The Sequel to Rona G’Way .. because ye loved it THAT much! according to the website. It's similar to the other one too except it lacks that lemon sharpness I loved. It's more bitter than juice, something I prefer myself but I think calling it a Juicy IPA, in both beers, is the wrong choice as it gives an expectation that isn't quite delivered. If it was simply a called a Session IPA, there would be no pre-conceived notions.

It's a fine, sessionable beer though and at only 3.8% you can forgive the thin body and just enjoy it for what it is. It would be a great beer to have many pints of while watching Munster play on TV in a Limerick pub.

Invasion is a 6% IPA which I feel should be re-badged to a No Messing IPA.

This is absolutely wonderful in every way. For a start, it's clear and a good ole fashioned west coast IPA like we used to drink, you know, 5 or so years ago. The body is chewy with plenty of malt and it's packed full of hops providing the welcome bitterness along with traditional grapefruit and pine notes.

One of the best IPAs I've had in a while and I seriously can't wait for the pubs to open again so I can try a pint of it.

I didn't see Harris pale ale while I was picking these up but that's one I've had plenty of times before so unless they've changed the recipe, it should still be a great pale ale and worthy of the attractive new green can.

Oh and on the re-brand? I really like it. They stand out on the shelf by combining bright colours with a no fuss, simple background. Some cans can be very busy and while the artwork can be fantastic, it can distract from the decision making process when deciding what to actually pick up off the shelf.

Brehon Brewhouse

2021-02-21T17:16:00.003+00:00

Brehon Brewhouse has gone through a little re-branding recently and kindly sent me some samples of the new beers along with some old favourites.

Make your own luck is a 4% kettle sour which contains passion fruit apparently but seems a bit more raspberry to me. That's good since prefer raspberry to to passion fruit. It's nice and tart with just a hint of sourness, sort of like an introductory sour beer to someone new to the style rather than throwing them right into the deep end with a Belgian gueuze. Like most session kettle sours, there's no real beer behind it, I get no malt at all nor do I detect any hops beyond basic bittering but it's damn tasty and a real thirst quencher.

Imagine is a 6.2% NEIPA. This is a big, fruity NEIPA, or almost because of a pronounced bitterness that a NEIPA should lack. It's juicy but thankfully not in a Capri Sun kind of way and that lingering bitterness is just so refreshing. The dry hopping was very strong with this one and it as extremely fresh since the BBF date was 22/1/22 I'm guessing the beer was packaged only a few weeks ago. More of this kind of thing please.

Just Because DIPA is beefy 8.5% and packaged 20th of December by the looks of it.
Unlike the previous beer, this one is clean and clear, you know, the way we used to drink beer a few years go. It's boozy too with a big malt body, with a slight orange marmalade and chewy mouthfeel. If I had one criticism is that there wasn't much in the way of hop aroma or flavours. Really, this is a beer that simply needs more late addition hops to open it up. I reckon this beer should be sipped closer to room temperature rather than just consumed at fridge temperatures as it's not a shouty beer. It's all about the subtle melanoidin notes rather than aggressive hops with a bit of orange marmalade on toast.

Brehon Blonde is a favourite sessionable thirst quencher of mine on draught when I can find it. A 4.3% pseudo lager as we used to call them in the homebrew world. The base beer is a malt forward, biscuity affair with with a hint of dried fruit. It's hopped lager a German lager and to be honest, they call just about call it a Helles and get away with it. The newer canned version seems paler and cleaner than I recall from the bottle and it's been a few years since I had this beer in bottle.

Killanny Red is a 4.5% red ale and one of the better red ales on the market in my opinion. It's very dark and could pass for a dark mild or even brown ale. There's a mild burnt toffee note but never descends in to the sweet caramel that's typical of the style. Instead, it's bitter! With a roasted nut and almost vinous finish.

Shanco Dubh is a big beast of a 7.7% porter. Dark with lashings of chocolate and coffee, another firm favourite of mine when it comes to big porters and stouts. There's a slight burnt wood note despite this beer never having seen the inside of a barrel. There is a barrel aged version of this which I had on cask a few years ago in Cork and that was pretty fantastic. I suppose the only issue I have with Shanco Dubh is that it's not Crann Beatha below.

Crann Beatha is my favourite beer of the Brehon range is a 10% whiskey barrel aged imperial stout. This 2019 release bottle is full of chocolate and cream, a hint of coffee.

The barest hint of treacle. While whiskey barrel aged, it doesn't just taste like whiskey, something many others suffer from. A bitter dark chocolate, vanilla and wood finish.

Red Right Hand is an 11% barleywine with a nod to Peaky Blinders.

There is of course a big malty backbone. The body is slightly thin with a bit of effervescence which makes it easier to drink than you would expect.

There's some oxidation which might be expected from this style of beer

Worked nicely with the slightly spicy lamb casserole I had for dinner. There's a subtle red wine, vinous note on the finish.

Thanks again to the brewery for the samples.

Zooming all over the Internet

2021-02-11T16:43:00.005+00:00

The first virtual session of 2021 happened on January 29th and was of course hosted by Craic Beer Community who have been a real lifeline for the Covid lockdowns.

Here are some thoughts on some of the beers in the January beer box.

First up was a beer from Hope Brewing which was actually a collaboration with Brian from Craic Beer Community. Miroslav Gose is a 4.5% gose with salt and coriander added. Lots of zesty lime from the coriander or perhaps yeast despite there not being any fruit additions.

A touch of salt but not as salty as many a gose I've had. Tart, bordering on sour. Like a limey, salty saison with a lingering, dry citrus finish. It was a great way to kick off the evening as it opened up my palate and left me ready for anything.

I was rather shocked to realise that I've never actually written anything about Larkin's IPA on the blog? I suppose I just drink so much of it I just assumed I already had. At 6.5% this is your perfect IPA in terms of alcohol. It has a great big body and lots of hops. While it seems like a NEIPA, it's certainly not. It has a very bitter finish. There's some grapefruit yes but that green, dry hop character is really at the front here. It's an absolutely fantastic beer, with a bitter but juicy finish. I mean honestly, I can't wait to get back to the pub and have some pints of it again.

Pixel Barrel 4 from Canvas Brewing is 6 % amber IPA which was aged for over two years in a red wine barrel. Plenty of brett characteristics with a slightly chalky texture. It's a little tart but also vinous, very much a red wine feel. Some vanilla and tannins from the wood. There's a whiff of Rodenbach off this but of course it's far more bitter than a typical Flanders Red.

Off to my local brewery now, Rascals being the other side of the Phoenix park from me. I can walk there in a bit over an hour or cycle there in about 20 minutes or less.

Rascals Breakfast of Champions is a 6.1% oatmeal stout with coffee from Imbibe.

The texture is creamy with a big dark chocolate and coffee flavour. Probably the best coffee stout I can recall if I'm honest. The finish is milky coffee with a hint of something slightly spicy, almost as if it saw a chilli addition or perhaps just something peppery from the yeast or hop addition. Either way, it's lovely, more of that please and I really do need to try and get some Imbibe coffee beans.

Dead Centre in Athone is never one to miss out on a Craic beer box, probably because their Beer Cloud service supplies the box but this one is another collaboration with Craic Beer Community.

Augustus Scoop is a 10% Imperial brown ale. Up front there's a lot of alcohol, there's no mistaking the ABV here. The base beer is malt intensive. Plenty of vanilla and it's all absolutely lovely but a little young, a bit of aging might be nice with this one. No chance of that as it's basically a one off.

Cheers again to Craic Beer Community and all the breweries that come on to the zoom sessions to talk about the beer. This is just 5 of the 12 beers in the box, 6 of which were opened on the night. The missing beer is Brehon Just Because DIPA which I'll talk about in the next post along with some other Brehon beers.

Dublin City Brewing Company

2021-01-29T15:28:00.000+00:00

Just before Christmas, I picked up the three available beers from Dublin City Brewing company based on Parnell Street in Dublin. There's a certain irony that I bought them in Cork perhaps.

I know they were getting tanks in last year and opening a tap room but whether they ever got to open last year due to Covid is doubtful. I reckon we are looking at an opening sometime later this year when Covid is no longer keeping us all sequestered at home.

Starting off with the Liberator Irish lager, a 4.2% clean, crisp lager, you can see the influence of Head Brewer Fergal Murray here. Having spent a few decades at Guinness, Fergal knows how to make a clean lager.

This is a perfectly good lager of the type that the majority of Irish people are used to. It feels like a large-scale mass produced lager, produced on a small scale and that's actually rather difficult to achieve. This will go down well with the locals. For me, I like a little more hop character and a bit more oomph from my malt in a lager. It's no German or Bohemian Pilsner and certainly no Helles, but it's not trying to be.

Patriot Pale Ale is a bit more my style. A chewy caramel base with a decent bit of bitterness to balance it out. This puts me more in mind of a hoppy red ale, or perhaps an amber. Tasty and clean with none of your diacetyl compounds which can be a common occurrence in Irish pale ales of this style. Perhaps a little high on the ABV scale at 5.5% to make it sessional but that's about my only complaint. There are far more interesting pale ales out there that I'd personally pick instead but there's nothing technically wrong with this one.

Renegade Red Ale was perhaps the only true disappointment for me and that's because it looks absolutely beautiful. A deep red but crystal clear, it made me feel like I was about to drink a Christmas beer. Unfortunately what I got was a pint of non-nitro Kilkenny. I haven't had Kilkenny in nearly 20 years but I always remember it as a tasteless version of Smithwicks which let's be clear, isn't particularly high on the flavour wheel either. I immediately wished I was back drinking Patriot, which was a better example of a red ale than this one.

This pretty much tasted of nothing I'm afraid. Don't get me wrong, there were no technical flaws here, it was crisp and clean but as someone who does actually love a decent red ale, I'm afraid this is not one I would bother with again. I would however be curious to know what Smithwicks or Kilkenny drinkers think of it though.

Apparently there's a porter on the horizon, I've seen it on the social media but not in the wild yet. I would expect that to be pretty good considering the pedigree of the brewer.

Despite not being blown away by the beer, having another tap room in Dublin city centre is wonderful. Hopefully when they are up and running better, there's going to be more interesting things on the horizon for us craft beer veterans and if not, there's two Galway Bay bars around the corner.

Cigar City Brewing - American Beers back on the blog!

2021-01-19T16:19:00.000+00:00

Cigar City beers have been available in Ireland for a while now but I've never bought them. In fact, I haven't purchased American beer in Ireland for years because Irish beer choice is so great these days.

I decided to pick these up during a recent trip to the big O'Brien's in Blanchardstown. I had to use my leftover loyalty points before they expired permanently thanks to yet more Nanny State shenanigans by the Irish government.

Anyway, Cigar City is a brewery I've come across in the US before so I figured I would break from the norm and try them out again.

Guayabera is a citra pale ale. It feels like it "should" be sessionable but not at 5.5% ABV it's not. I keep cans of 7UP Free in the fridge and Pauline kept accidentally picking this up by mistake while she's suffering through Dryanuary so it's a good thing I finally cracked it open. A bit like a can of 7UP, this is a lemon and lime thirst quencher but with a bigger than expected malt base which reminded me of pale ales from 10 years ago. A bitter orange pith mixed with actual hop bitterness kept me craving more of this little cracker. I might just have to drop the 7UP from the fridge and hope she doesn't notice.

Jai Alai seems to be to Cigar City as Guinness is to, well Guinness. There are a few versions too but this is the bog standard IPA. This is the beer I had in the US and in bottle back in 2011 but this time in a fresh enough can. In fact, the canning date was late November so it was only a few weeks old.

Citrus is to the fore again with a glassic grapefruit and orange, in fact so much orange, it was like an orange essence essential oil. That slick oil makes its way down to the mouthfeel too. It's a full bodied IPA which reminds me a little of Bell's Two Hearted but perhaps a little less refined.

This beer reminded me of how excellent a good American IPA can be. I may not have had it in 10 years but it's still moreish.

Maduro is a brown ale, yay! We love a good brown ale in these parts. I was actually expecting the sort of American Brown ales we get here sometimes which are basically like a Brown IPA, please don't make that more of a thing than it already is. It's not that though, this feels more muted, more grown up. More British actually.

Throw this on cask at a bar and I'd be a very happy punter, especially after the 5.5% kicks in. There's little on the nose but I suspect that's because it was still too cold when I opened it. Flavours were as your would expect, a little coffee and slightly burnt toffee. A lingering bitter finish rounds off the malt forward base.

And with that, I saw on twitter yesterday that Grand Cru Beers have now added Bear Republic to their list so they will be hitting the shelves soon. I'm looking forward to that because I really enjoyed Racer 5 when I had it in San Francisco back in 2010. I imagine I'll be trying out American beers on the blog a bit more now, just like I did in the early days when there was very little Irish beer to write about.

Golden Pints Awards 2020

2021-01-08T17:31:00.002+00:00

Meh, 2020 can do one.

It's now the first week of 2021 and while Ireland is in the 3rd full lockdown with crazy numbers of new infections, there's hope on the horizon in the form of the vaccine rollout.

Let's see how much in the way of a Golden Pints awards I can get through despite almost not leaving the apartment for most of 2020.

Best Irish Cask Beer: Well I only had the opportunity to have cask ale on one occasion all year and that was at the only beer festival I managed to get to, the Franciscan Well Cask Ales and Strange Brews festival. It was before we had even heard of Covid 19 or Coronavirus. So the best cask beer that day was Rascals Absolutely Baltic Porter.

~~Best~~ Only Irish Beer Festival: See above, It wins by default, yay! It was the only beer festival that actually occurred in Ireland before the pandemic arrived. It's always one of my favourites every year anyway. I spend most of the day running the beer judging and then the evening enjoying the lovely beer and since I've already sampled pretty much everything, I already know what I want to enjoy pints of glasses of.

Best Irish Keg Beer: Much easier since the few places I managed to get to during the year made the selection quite limited. Trouble Brewing Ambush is the one I always went back to though so it really has to be my pick.

Best Irish Bottled Beer: Hmmm good question, sure it's all cans these days. Technically, the best bottled Irish beer I had this year was my last bottle of Beoir#1 in September but since that hasn't been commercially available in years and never commercially available in bottle, that doesn't count. If we were to go on volume, probably The Crafty Brewing (Rye River) stout in Lidl with the American brown a close second.

Best Irish Canned Beer: Sure Ambush wins? No, as much as I love Ambush, even in can format, competition is fierce in that category. The beer that stuck with me the most for absolute depth of flavour was O Brother One Beating Heart. It should probably win for can artwork alone but the porter inside the can is just beautiful. Oh and also by O Brother is Freedoom, one of the tastiest DIPAs I've ever had, a worthy runner up for me.

Best Overseas Bottled Beer: Err...I didn't get to try much so let's just go with Rodenbach Caractere Rouge. It must be good, it won Gold in the WBA awards for Belgium. Having stood inside one of the massive oak foeders they use, I always appreciate a good Rodenbach.

Best Overseas Canned Beer: A bit more luck here, mainly thanks to a few virtual beer festival boxes with foreign beer in them. Probably Verdant Safety Flares but I haven't had any outstanding beer from overseas this year.

Best Bottle/Can Label: O Brother, Freedoom. I just love the Truman Show inspired graphics which are especially relevant in the shambles that was 2020.

I'm going to skip a few of the regular ones here like best new bar or new brewery because if there were any, I never got to experience them before told to stay at home by the powers that be.

Pub/Bar of the Year: 57 The Headline doesn't win by default but it almost achieves it for that reason. You see while most pubs closed, some dipped their toes in to take away pints and the like but from the beginning, Máire and Geoff went on the offensive. They turned the pub downstairs into a mix of off-license and gift shop featuring local products as well as take away pints and click & collect food. In the beginning, Geoff even personally delivered cases of beer and wine to people who ordered.

Even better, when they were allowed to open as a restaurant, they opened it upstairs and kept numbers strict. It was one of the few places we dared to visit all year because we knew we would be safe. Oh and extra points for their SMASH burger. If you haven't had it, you need to.

Supermarket of the Year: SuperValu always wins this one for me really. My local in Blanchardstown is usually well stocked. Big shout out to Lidl for the Crafty Brewing range for when I just want decent "drinking" beer. Aldi deserves a nod for the wonderful Rheinbacher German Pilsner they sell.

Independent Retailer of the Year: Carryout Tyrrelstown which is also home to Beerclub.ie gets my vote. While it has always been well stocked with great beer, the fact they went above and beyond during lockdown and even kept the growler fill service going is amazing, well done to Caoimhe and the team.

Online Retailer of the Year: I never used to order much beer online but this year, for obvious reasons, I did. For me, it has to be beercloud.ie which was set up by Dead Centre Brewing in Athlone. I think initially it concentrated on the local Midlands breweries but it quickly became a hub for breweries all around the country.

Best Beer Blog or Website: In the past, I've often given this to The Beer But but this year, despite a business as usual approach of almost ignoring the pandemic and continuing to review many, many beers, I'm giving this year's spot to Brian Cahill for his Craic Beer Community. Brian's website has a blog sure but the real beauty is the virtual beer tastings and virtual beer festivals he has hosted with Zoom. I think he has helped to keep a lot of us sane over the past year so there's no one who deserves it more. Hard to image I only physically met him for the first time and only time while I cycled to The Black Sheep to get a growler filled of their Oktoberfest beer. Cheers Brian.

Best Brewery Website/Social media: I'm going with what you might think is an outlier here. I'm giving it to St .Mels Brewing for really upping their game and their story. Sure, they are not as flashy as some but it was the one social media improvement from any Irish brewery that I noticed the most and they also interacted in a number of the virtual beer festivals throughout the year. They even managed a re-brand and new website. Runner up to Rascals Instagram for keeping me drooling for pizza and pints all year. I only managed to cycle over once during the summer for a sit outside pizza and pints lunch and it was divine.

Anyway, that's it for 2020 thankfully. I didn't get too many blog posts all year due to restrictions and pure laziness if I'm honest. Here's hoping for a Covid-Free 2021

Recovering from Whiplash

2020-12-23T11:32:00.003+00:00

Last month, I got Whiplash, by that I mean I received a lovely gift pack from Whiplash with a few of their beers, three of which I hadn't had yet so that was great. Whiplash were celebrating one year of having their own brewery in Dublin despite being around as gypsy brewers since 2016.

Jupiters is a 5.1% pale ale. It's the juicy style of cloudy pale ale we seem to get a lot of these days and packed full of grapefruit citrus and pineapple but it has a rather bitter finish which is like a breath of fresh air in these days of Capri Sun/Sunny Delight pale ales. It's rather similar to my go-to pale ale, Trouble Ambush.

Backdrifts is a 9% Oat Tripel. A huge whack of bubble-gum with a distinct Belgian yeast character. I was expecting something big, boozy and a real sipper. Instead, this is rather like a tropical version of American cream soda and surprisingly drinkable for the ABV.

Grisette Traminer is a quaffable 4.1% grisette. Wait, what's a grisette? Think of it like a watery saison and you're on the right track. It's similar to a gose except it's not salty. So Grisette Traminer is a watery saison then? Nope.....

They put oats, orange zest, lychee and rose water in it so it's basically an exotic fruit cocktail. On the nose is pure rosewater and orange, pretty much smells like Turkish Delight. The lychee and orange really dominate the flavour at first with rosewater a little more muted than in the aroma. The oats provide a little mouthfeel in what is otherwise a watery feeling beer, as it's supposed to be. The finish was spicy and citrus with a lingering bitterness.

If there's one thing I can take away from that particular beer tasting a few weeks ago it's this. My dishwasher clearly didn't do a good job cleaning those glasses.

Thanks to Whiplash for sending on the beers.

So, It Begins

2020-11-13T16:58:00.003+00:00

By all accounts, the first beer produced by Otterbank in their new brewery in Donegal should be left to age for a while but when you buy a few of them, you might as well crack one open. Otterbank is owned/brewed by Declan Nixon of YellowBelly fame. He's had Otterbank as a gypsy brand for years and finally took the plunge himself in buying the Boghopper brewery in Muff, Donegal which had just closed its doors. He still brews for YellowBelly of course as Otterbank doesn't take up too much time due to the aging process of its beers.

This 8.2% mixed fermentation saison is a pretty rare breed in the Irish market. It aged for 18 months in pinot noir and chardonnay oak barrels with a mix of cultures and then blended for a further 6 months in stainless before being bottled and conditioned for another 3 months before being released to the public. Now that's "Time dedicated to you".

The beer itself is quite bitter for a saison and there's a fair bit of bretty horseblanket funk going on. It's very enjoyable but I reckon it will round out nicely after a bit more time. I'll probably crack another one open around Christmas time and see how it's maturing.

Wicklow Wolf time next and first up is their collaboration with Dot Brew. Guardian of the Galaxy is a double black IPA and one I've had a few of since its release. The chosen name is due to the cosmic hops used, namely Galaxy, Strata and Comet. The hops really are the star of the show, see what I did there.....?

Anyway, it's a big 8% dank and dark beer that's packed full of juicy and aromatic hops and it's one I really enjoy, in fact I'll likely crack open another one this weekend and when that's gone, pick up some more. OK it won't be for everyone but I love a big BIPA myself.

Apex is the regular Wicklow Wolf stout and is a regular tipple of mine, partly because it's similar in style to what I brew myself (Dark Stranger) and also because it's usually available in the Londis across the road. They released a few special versions and the first one is S'Mores.

For those not in the know, a s'more is an American snack which involves melted marshmallow and some chocolate in a sandwich between 2 graham crackers. A graham cracker is similar to a digestive biscuit but not the same. It's crunchier from memory.

Anyway, the s'mores version of Apex is a big pastry stout which is packed full of chocolate and marshmallow. It almost tastes gooey if that's even possible. Did I like it? Yeah sure, as a one-off purchase but it's too sweet for me. Give me a regular can of Apex and day.

You might then imagine a little trepidation when trying the Tiramisu version of Apex because, more cake beer. However while S'mores actually tasted like a liquified s'more, this does not thankfully taste of tiramisu. Now, firstly, I absolutely love tiramisu as a dessert, it's one of my favourite things to eat after dinner when there's room. This does not taste like that, instead what we have her is a very respectable coffee stout. I'd go so far to say that it's one of the best coffee stouts I can recall having. It's a real cold brew to be honest. At a whopping 8% I can't imagine having too many of them but this is one I'll probably pick up again when I see it.

If you ever pay attention to Brewdog on twitter, you probably know the story behind this beer. Apparently a bit of banter between Brewdog James and Aldi led to this beer. Essentially, Aldi brought out a beer called Anti Establishment IPA and it was similar enough in colouring to look like Brewdog Punk IPA. James promised to brew a knock off of their own beer and call it Yaldi Ald IPA and Aldi asked him to send them some samples. James suggested they sell their knock-off of the knock-off beer.

Eventually, Ald IPA became a thing and it appeared on Irish shelves recently. I picked one up to take one for the team so to speak. I didn't expect much from it if I'm honest. I was pleasantly surprised to find I prefer this beer to Punk IPA. I'm not sure if I'd buy it again, depends on the price as there are really good beers out there in the 330ml can range. Look, it's a decent, sessionable IPA and basically is what it is. I only saw it as I was in Aldi getting some Rheinbacher Pils for a German themed evening.

Autumn Lockdown Beers

2020-11-09T16:13:00.002+00:00

Is there a more appropriate image of the current level 5 lockdown in Ireland than the Truman show like image on a can of O Brother Freedoom? I picked up a few beers for the weekend from O'Brien's and 57 The Headline and cracked them open this weekend.

Freedoom by the way is a beautiful 8.4% DIPA from O Brother which reminds me a lot of the latest version of Trouble Brewing's Fresh Prince of Kildare which in itself is like a bigger version of Ambush.

It's a big juicy number and very easy to drink so I finished my weekend with a can of that last night before heading to bed.

I don't see many cans of Metalman in Dublin these days I'm afraid to see but thankfully for them, it's because demand closer to Waterford is high enough that they don't need to worry about the plethora of competition in Dublin.

It was nice to find a beer of theirs I haven't had before. Fracture is a 6.5% Rye IPA and it's probably the most rye forward rye IPA I can recall having. Rye tends to have a sweetness and slight spiciness to it that you don't get from standard barley malts. A solid beer and another one that doesn't feel the 6.5%!

Third Barrel's Break from the haze is going for a more traditional West Coast IPA feel, though it's a bit darker than most. It feels more like an American Amber in some respects. Perhaps a bit caramel forward for my taste and at 8.5% we are in DIPA territory by an extra one percent.

It's a solid beer though and that extra caramel brings it in to winter warmer territory to me. I very much appreciated the lingering bitter finish which balanced the sweet toffee and caramel nicely.

Not straying too far is Stone Barrel. Get Some is 4.6% IPL which is exactly what you want from the style. Crisp and dry in the way an IPA rarely is with a good amount of hop bitterness.

I always think of India Pale Lagers as the perfect choice for someone who loves IPAs but is just sick of them. In fact, IPLs are probably closer to IPAs of 10 years ago than modern IPAs are if I'm honest.

Except of course Stone Barrel's magnificent Boom which you can just see in the background there.

By the way, I got two cans of Boom with my Smashed Angus burger from 57 The Headline. Burger and chips with 2 cans of Boom for €15 which is superb value. The burger is a mighty Angus beef patty covered in the cheesiest of cheeses and some chopped gherkins and lettuce from memory. Honestly, it's the best damn burger I've had in years. I doubt the 2 cans of Boom will be available for long with the burger and chips so I advise being quick.

Larkin's Lighten Up is a proper 9.5 % no messing around DIPA. I actually cracked this open when Joe Biden was officially announced as the election winner. The face actually reminded me a bit of Trump who could do with lightening up a bit.

While easy drinking, lighten up does feel every bit of its 9.5% after a short while so this delicious supper should be had near the end of the night, after a few more reasonable beers like that Boyne Session IPA in the background. Tropical fruits and juice and tempered by a sustained bitterness and while it looks thick and syrupy, it's anything but. A lovely light and smooth mouthfeel makes this one impressive beer. This isn't a new release as I'm fairly sure I had it about this time last year on tap at one of the Galway Bay bars but it's the first time I have had it in can.

Speaking of Boyne, I grabbed some at the Londis across the road on Friday when I ran out of "drinking beer" since everything I had was over 8% which isn't good on a Friday night.

Honestly, I wanted to try it since they were taken over by Carlow Brewing. Gone are the 330ml bottles/cans, in are the traditional 500ml bottles Carlow uses for most of their packaging. The session IPA is a sold little number with a no quibble bitterness and none of your capri sun. It's exactly what I wanted, a beer for drinking.

Moving back to the previous weekend over Halloween, I cracked open two of the Irish pumpkin beers that were on the market.

White Hag's Samhain (sow-an) , which is the Irish holiday Halloween comes from. This is a heavily spice forward pumpkin ale and a hefty 6.2% to boot. You name the winter spice, it's probably in here. It's basically what you get if you throw mulled wine mix into a beer and I love mulled wine, a lot. sure it was mulled wine which started me drinking again in my mid 20s after not bothering for years as there was nothing worth drinking. I was in Prague at the time so next trying the Czech lager helped a little too.

Ah Trouble Brewing's Pumpkin Brew, how I love you. If I'm honest, I don't think I've ever had a packaged version of this before but every year for the last however many year, I've had many the pint in both keg and cask format and loved every one. This one is a much lighter 4.5% so it has always been sessionable and while it probably has most of the same spices as Samhain above, they are much tamer which makes it more accessible to someone who doesn't want to be overwhelmed.

You know the Bing Crosby song I'm dreaming of a white Christmas?

That idyllic image of a Dickens style snowy Christmas, well at this stage, I'm just dreaming of any-aul Christmas at all. You know, one you can spend with family and friends and not stuck at home following restrictions because of Covid.

Dick Mack's Brewery Tour, Complete with Social Distancing - Dingle

2020-07-30T17:13:00.002+01:00

Dick Mack's taken June 2018

OK I know there's a global pandemic at the moment. I've missed out on two trips away in 2020 so far. We were supposed to be going to the UK and then France and Netherlands via the channel tunnel on the first weekend of July but we had to cancel that.

Instead, we went to West Cork to visit Pauline's folks which she hadn't seen since February and then moved over to Kerry, visiting a few places along the way.

Image shows the list of venues serving Dick Mack's beer

Since Dick Mack's pub itself is closed, we booked in to the tour on one of the days we spent in Dingle. Our guide was Laura from Cork who comes up during the summer to run tours. As she put it, a bunch of girls came to Dingle a few years ago for the weekend and she had her first stout there. It was Dick Mack's coffee stout and she fell in love with it and craft beer.

Unfortunately for her, the coffee stout has now been dropped in favour of a more traditional dry Irish nitro stout. She's hoping it comes back as a seasonal.

Now, the tour could be done in a matter of minutes but Laura manages to keep us entertained for about an hour. It starts in the taproom where she goes over the short history of the brewery before bringing us across the courtyard to the brewery itself, located in a former cow shed. That's a 500 litre braukon kit there, the smallest they've ever made. In fact, the week before she happened to have a head brewer at Erdinger on the tour.

Turning to face the other way, we see all the fermenters which is now pretty much at capacity as you can see.

Panorma of the whole brewery

I was last at Dick Mack's pub in 2018 but didn't visit the brewery itself that time as it was too late so we just enjoyed drinks.

After we left the brewery, we headed back to the tap room to sample the beers. This one is the stout but we went through the core range.

The pale ale was crisp and lager like. Dry and lots of lemon citrus notes. Lingering bitterness. I could drink a lot of this.

The amber ale was starting to turn a little in the samples but I tried it the next day at The Boat Yard for lunch. It's dry with a hint of toffee and some orange. It's quite biscuity with a little honey. A very decent beer.

The stout is very smooth with lots of chocolate. It would be closer to O'Hara's than Guinness but not as sweet as Murphy's if you want to compare to macro.

Lastly we had the Session IPA which is seriously good. There's a huge whack of fresh hops off this one.

That's it really, there were about 15 people on the tour and social distancing was maintained on a group basis so each group were placed at least 2m from the next group at all times and Laura wore a face shield during the tour.

The tour cost us €12 each and was well worth it, especially since the only other way to get a beer in Dingle was by having food somewhere that serves it. All the regular pubs were shut. It also turned out to be a very rainy two days in Dingle so what better way than to spend some time in a warm tap room and brewery. It lasted about an hour, perhaps 90 minutes at most to finish off our samples.

By the way, if it looks like it's going to be raining in Dingle, be sure to book the aquarium to see the fish and penguins, we did that the morning before we left as it was sold out for the first 2 days.

Porterhouse - New Range of Cans

2020-06-30T12:12:00.001+01:00

The Porterhouse Brewery is a longtime favourite of mine so when they told me they were bringing out a new range of cans, I was excited. The new family of cans includes 3 completely new beers and then my all-time favourite, Wrasslers XXXX which has now just been shortened to XXXX. I'll get to that one last. Anyway, Porterhouse kindly sent me some samples to try so here are my thoughts.

First up, I tried Rambler, a 4.6% juicy pale ale. This can was really interesting because the flavour description on the back was probably the most accurate I've ever read on a packaged beer. Here it is in the next image.

It reads "One for the juice heads. Rambler pours a light orange colour with a tight white head. We have used 3 hop additions of El Dorado, Enigma, Eukanot at whirlpool and dry hop. This combo contributes flavour & aromas of orange peel, watermelon, citrus and white grape for drinkability of smooth fresh juice with low carbonation."

Those flavours all jumped out at me before I read the description. The beer itself? Absolutely loved it. I suspect I'll be buying a good few of these in the future.

The timing of this one was pretty good. My cat's head is blocking the bit of sun making it through the clouds but the sun was about to go behind the apartment block opposite me. Sundown is a 4% session IPA which is usually a big tick for me. However, something about this beer just didn't quite work for my palate. A massive hit of pineapple was for me overshadowed by the aroma of a packet of onion rings. I tried a second can the next day just to be safe and it was the same. The hops used in the description might help explain it. Both Simcoe and Citra are used and both can impart a bit of onion or garlic flavour compounds. Citra is more known for its catty/ammonia compounds but I didn't really get those here. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say there might just be too many hops used for such a low strength beer. I will say that perhaps I'm just really susceptible to this particular aroma and flavour compound.

The good news is that I still enjoyed the beer and there is a whole lot of flavour in this little session IPA. It was a grower for me rather than an instant hit.

I'd be interested in hearing anyone else's thoughts on this one in the comments.

After moving inside (the sun really was going down), I switched to the last pale ale of the bunch. Renegade is a 5.3% New England IPA. Anyone who knows me well or reads this blog regularly will know that I don't really like a "real" NEIPA. I find them too sweet and basically taste like a carbonated packet of Capri Sun. I do however like fake NEIPAs where the bitterness has been allowed to come out. Renegade is such a beer. Bittering hops have certainly been added into the boil at some point and what they have done is used an extended, lower temperature whirlpool at the end to smooth out the hop additions and then dry hopped with my three favourite hops. Amarillo, Mosaic and Galaxy are three that you can't go wrong with. They have also used a traditional east coast yeast, though I suspect that's a more traditional pale ale/IPA yest than the crazy Conan New England strain used by the likes of Heady Topper.

I was reminded of a slightly bigger Trouble Brewing Ambush with this one and believe me, that's very high praise.

Familiar territory now. The beer formerly known as Wrasslers XXXX gets dropped to XXXX for the canned version. Described as a full on stout, that's basically what it is and what it always was. In previous descriptions, Wrasslers was always described as the kind of stout Michael Collins used to drink, or basically your great grandfather. Of course beer historian Martyn Cornell can explain that one better.

I know my first taste of this beer was on Sunday the 1st of March 2009 because I wrote about it on this very blog that same day. Please excuse the state of my writing back then. I cringe every time I link to an old post.

To me, Wrasslers XXXX has always been like a Black IPA before there was such a style. It's heavily hopped with a mix of American (Galena, Nugget) and English (EKG) hops so you get a real hop punch and intense bitterness. Of course it's not a Black IPA since its a particularly "stouty" stout.

If you find yourself in a Porterhouse bar or even just a bar that has Wrasslers on tap, be sure to have it. On tap, it's a nitro stout and that's a different experience than a regular CO2 carbonated can. I'm really considering trying these two side by side. I'm hoping the bars will be selling them and they are not just for the off-trade because I really would love to see the difference with this one. Then again, I think I say that for most stouts where tap is nitro and packaged is carbonated.

Final Thoughts

One thing that jumped out at me was that the hops in the ingredients list were not the same as the ones in the descriptions so I think someone made a little mistake in that section.

In fact, it looks like the ingredients list of Sundown was used on all of the pale ales, but not XXXX which is certainly correct for that beer.

Still, at least they are including the hop varieties on the cans and even the yeast strain which is a nice touch for the homebrewer in me. Of course

New Branding? I love it actually. It really stands out and while I wasn't too sure when they changed their logo a couple of years ago, it now really suits the new can design and it's a rather subtle thing but making it bigger on a black background really works. I also think the new cans look as if they are perfectly designed for a BBQ or a festival like Big Grill which is supposed to be in August but I'm not sure it will be going ahead with Covid19 restrictions.

My final thought is this. The three new pale ales would be great on tap, especially Rambler and Renegade.

The Pubs That Made Us - Pub 10 - 57 The Headline

2020-06-04T12:04:00.001+01:00

57 The Headline from their website

Pub 10 - 57 The Headline - Dublin

There's no way I couldn't mention The Headline as a pub that has been among the most influential in my beer journey. For one thing, Geoff was the behind The Bull and Castle transformation back in the day and was at the forefront of the "craft beer revolution" in Dublin.

I wish I was in The Headline with a pint of Trouble Ambush right now

Geoff and Máire make a fantastic team with Geoff dealing with the beer and Máire especially knowledgeable about wine and gin. Together they have embraced the neighbourhood pub vibe and also made it a destination pub for those willing to walk the 15 to 20 minutes to Clanbrassil street from the city centre.

The Headline keeps 20 odd taps of mostly independent Irish beer along with a large range of bottles/cans. Oh and since Geoff and Máire are foodies, the food is always excellent. Buffalo wings and a Delmonico steak for two for the win with a bottle of whatever wine Máire recommends.

Right now, they are closed along with all pubs in Ireland but are making ends meat by offering off-sales delivery and strict social-distancing collection along with food collection when possible. The Headline will hopefully be one of my first destinations when going back to pubs is safe again.

Anyway, those were the 10 pubs that brought me on my beer journey. There are plenty of others that I love of course but these are probably the 10 most influential pubs in my life.

The Pubs That Made Us - Pub 9 - The Brew Dock - Dublin

2020-06-03T14:58:00.000+01:00

Pub 9 - The Brew Dock - Dublin

If you were to ask me which of the Galway Bay bars is my favourite, I'm not sure I could answer 100% because each has its own charm and reason to visit. At a pinch, The Salthouse in Galway is probably the one I love the most but rarely get to visit.

The Brew Dock was one of the newer GB bars in Dublin after Against The Grain and The Black Sheep.

I first visited in 2012 and it became my most frequented Galway Bay bar in Dublin. There are a few reasons for this but chiefly is the location. It's right beside Busaras so if I was getting the bus home to the midlands at the time, I would have had a last drink in The Brew Dock. Or sometimes when I got off the bus as my starting point.

Later when I moved back to Dublin, I would often get the train to Blanchardstown across the road at Connolly Station as it was more reliable and quicker than the bus service back then.

These days, I tend to use the bus more than the train to get to Castleknock, despite being on the same bus and train routes as I was previously. It's just that where I am in Castleknock is often much quicker to get to by bus from the city centre than going by train. That said, if I'm that side of the city I will get the train home so I have an excuse to pop in to The Brew Dock. It would be rude not to.

Anyway, I'm digressing. The Brew Dock, as my first or last port of call on any journey into Dublin was for may years the place I first tried one the ever evolving range of Galway Bay beers. It is literally a pub that helped guide my drinking choices of today.

The Pubs That Made Us - Pub 8 - The Bierhaus - Cork

2020-06-02T16:41:00.001+01:00

Pub 8 - The Bierhaus - Cork

Sticking with Cork, we move to the iconic Bierhaus not too far from The Franciscan Well. There's a real sense of "Dive Bar" about The Bierhaus when you first walk in. There's beer paraphernalia from all over the world crammed into every bit of wall and ceiling space and there's not much of either as it's a small, rectangular single room bar. One might call it cosy. I always pop in when I'm in Cork as there's always some fantastic and random beers on tap as well as bottle/can. Really though, it's the atmosphere that people go for and not just the impressive beer list.

The Pubs That Made Us - Pub 7 - The Franciscan Well Brewpub

2020-05-28T13:30:00.011+01:00

Pub 7 - The Franciscan Well Brewpub - Cork

I first visited The Franciscan Well in March 2009 and at the time, the brewpub had been open for about 10 years at this stage as it was one of the original wave of independent breweries in the late 90s that actually survived.

The pub is located through an arch covered alleyway which gives it an almost Belgian or Dutch feel to it. Most of the space is given to a massive beer garden out the back which these days is mostly covered over and heated which means it's used all year round.

One time I was there, a couple of lads came in and ordered two Bulmers (Magners) ciders. They didn't serve that and offered an alternative cider but they switched to Carlsberg or some other lager also not served and then refused their own Rebel Lager. They then asked for Guinness, also not served. They didn't seem to get that it was a brew pub. Eventually I think they settled on bottled Coors Light or something but it just struck me as bizarre that they changed drink styles from cider to different styles of beer in order to ask for a brand that they recognised. They were even offered samples!

It struck me how ignorant and brand loyal the Irish consumer was in 2009 which is thankfully very different in 2020 for a lot of us, though the majority are probably still unwilling to trying something the TV doesn't tell them to try.

The Franciscan Well Brewpub also holds a number of beer festivals each year, including Ireland's oldest each Easter (except this year due to Covid 19). The Franciscan Well has always been a destination pub unless you happen to live in Cork city. Despite the fact the brewery was sold to Molson Coors a few years ago, as far as I know the pub itself is still owned by Shane Long who helps promote independent breweries through his numerous festivals as well as general help/advice.

I was just there in February, shortly before the Covid 19 shutdown for their annual cask festival, one of my favourite events in the Irish beer calendar. Oh and they have a fantastic wood fired pizza kitchen in the beer garden so you won't go hungry.

The Pubs That Made Us - Pub 6 - Porterhouse Temple Bar

2020-05-27T14:09:00.001+01:00

from theporterhouse.ie

Pub 6 - Porterhouse Temple Bar - Dublin

This one should come as no surprise really. This pub used to be a brewpub before they moved production to larger premises in the suburbs. Back in early 2009 when I first started visiting Dublin craft beer pubs, this was always somewhere I would visit. Back then, I lived in the midlands so it was a 90+ minute bus journey each way.

There's another Porterhouse in the city centre called Porterhouse Central which I would also visit but I just prefer the vibe in the Temple Bar branch.

While The Porterhouse is "technically" one of the few "tied houses" in Ireland, there's plenty of beer from other Irish and international breweries on tap as well as bottles available so there's no real limit when it comes to choice here. That said, when I go to a Porterhouse it's usually to drink one of their own beers. I often alternated between Oyster Stout and Wrasslers XXXX with the latter being my preference to this day. I'm still a regular here when out "pubbing" in Dublin which is thankfully easier these days since I live in Dublin again. I even sometimes walk there from Castleknock in about an hour if the weather's good.

The Pubs That Made Us - Pub 5 - The Bull and Castle

2020-05-26T12:40:00.011+01:00

Pub 5 - The Bull and Castle - Dublin

If there's one pub in the world that I could point to as somewhere that has defined my drinking habits of today, this is it. I suspect the same could be said for quite a few people I know, including a lot of independent Irish brewery owners. I'm in familiar territory now because all pubs from now on have copious amounts of notes on this blog so I can use previous articles to refresh my memory and provide photos. As a result, I know that I first visited The Bull and Castle on Sunday the 1st of March back in 2009.

This was the first pub I had ever visited in Ireland where I was able to drink beer from independent Irish breweries (there weren't many back then) and also have the choice of lots of other beers from around the world. In fact, the very first beer I had in The Bull and Castle was Big Daddy IPA from Speakeasy in San Francisco.

The Bull and Castle was a launchpad for Irish Breweries. Not only was it where new Irish beers were launched, it was also where the ideas for new breweries evolved. Dungarvan Brewing, Metalman Brewing, Trouble Brewing and Rascals all started here and I'm sure a few others I'm forgetting. Why? Because we used to hold our homebrew meetings there every month. Anyone in the process of setting up a brewery or who just had a notion could test their recipes and get feedback from other amateur brewers and beer aficionados.

In early 2009, The Bull and Castle was only only place in Dublin apart from The Porterhouse pubs and Messrs Maguire (now Sweetman's) to serve independent Irish beer. These days, Dublin is awash with craft beer specialist bars/pubs but we all still pop in to The Bull and Castle from time to time as it's still a fantastic pub with great food and an always impressive tap and bottle list.

Hopefully, after the global pandemic ends and pubs begin to open in Dublin again around August 10th, I really hope we don't lose any of our independent beer serving pubs.

The Pubs That Made Us - Pub 4 - Sheridan's on the docks

2020-05-25T14:30:00.001+01:00

I took this photo in 2010 days after it closed

Pub 4 - Sheridan's on the docks - Galway

Unfortunately, this Galway gem was forced to close in 2010 after the landlord repossessed the building but when I was there in late 2008 watching the rugby and eating fine cheese, I was introduced to some wonderful bottled English ales. Galway Hooker was also on tap. Again, I was designated driver that day so I was just sampling the beer. The reason this makes the list is simply because it was the first time I had experienced the concept of beer and food pairing. It was a real eye opener for me. Beer wasn't just for drinking for the sake of it. There was depth and layers to explore and interactions with different foods to experience. I was a wine drinker before I was a beer drinker and this was more familiar territory. In fact, that day in Galway opened my eyes so much that I started home brewing beer and writing this very blog only a few weeks later.

In the image above, taken on June 1st during the boat festival, I had no idea that Sheridan's as I knew it had actually been shut down only days previously and the landlord was selling beer through the window to festival goers. It was a sad loss to Galway at the time and will always be remembered by those of us who had the pleasure to visit while it existed.

The Pubs That Made Us - Pub 3 - The Kings Head Galway

2020-05-24T13:00:00.012+01:00

The Kings Head - Galway

The Kings Head, Galway (thekingshead.ie)

Pub 3 brings us to late 2008 and my first journey into Irish craft beer. I was hosting Alistair Reece who wrote about beer in Prague at the time on his blog Fuggled. A Scotsman living in Prague who writes about beer! At the time, I had only had local, craft beer in the US and didn't really know it existed in Ireland beyond The Porterhouse pubs in Dublin who served their own beer.

Al did his research and discovered a relatively new brewery/beer called Galway Hooker. It was an IPA (Irish pale ale) based on Sierra Nevada pale ale at the time. I'd had plenty of that in the US. He looked up an Irish homebrew website called Irish Craft Brewer at the time, which later became Beoir of which I spent 5 years as Chair but I digress.

I was designated driver so could only manage a half but Galway Hooker was delicious. I was literally hooked. Galway Hooker is still sold at The Kings Head as far as I know. I haven't been in over a year but it's a staple. I always stop in to The Kings Head when in Galway, especially if there's rugby on. The problem is, everyone else in Galway tends to have the same idea.

The next pub is also in Galway and was on the same day but is no longer there any guesses?

The Pubs That Made Us - Pub 2 - Palmerstown House

2020-05-23T12:30:00.011+01:00

Palmerstown House - Dublin

Palmerstown House

Day 2, pub 2 is Palmerstown House which is located in Palmerstown village. This was always seen as the fancier of the two pubs in Palmerstown growing up. The younger people went to The Silver Granite but you really dressed up to go to Palmerstown House. For one thing, it was a whole kilometre away from The Granite.

On the few occasions I went here when I was of legal drinking age, I didn't actually drink. My only real memory of it was my friend Derek being very excited that Miller Genuine Draught was on tap. I think he felt like he was in the US, that's how "fancy" this place was in the late 90s.

The funny thing is, even though I didn't drink, I was never a designated driver. We just walked the 2 km from where we all lived. It just wouldn't be a proper night out if I just drove the everyone there.

I've been a few times since then, mostly for the Sunday carvery and the beer choice is a little better these days. Oh and the carvery is pretty good by the way. None of my friends or family live in Palmerstown these days so I doubt I'll be back, unless I cycle there from Castleknock for nostalgia after the Covid-19 pandemic is over.

Tomorrow's pub will not be in Palmerstown because that's the both of them covered now.