Supporting craft breweries

Aglomerado

Pen Rua wrote: »

Was in the direction of an Aldi for the first time in a long while. Their (craft) beer selection lags behind Lidl in a big way. Their “own brand” craft beer is mediocre at best, and they buy in precious few Irish breweries. Compared to Lidl with a stellar bang for your buck “own brand” brewed by Rye River, and more recently the 4 packs from White Hag et al.

+1, their Rye River stuff has something for every mood. At the moment I like the American style brown ale and wheat IPA, great beers for the price. Delighted with the Porterhouse and White Hag offerings too!
The only beer I buy in Aldi these days is the non alcoholic IPA from Roadworks, if I want a couple of beers mid week it's the best tasting one!

toffeeshel

Aglomerado wrote: »

The only beer I buy in Aldi these days is the non alcoholic IPA from Roadworks, if I want a couple of beers mid week it's the best tasting one!

The Lough Gill beers in Aldi are great value @ €1.99 when available

Macy0161

Wicklow Wolf opening the Taproom this week. Must have the new licence, as growler fills, and no minimum quantity on cans. Will be paying a visit on Friday! No price or stock list yet "coming soon" apparently.

toffeeshel wrote: »

The Lough Gill beers in Aldi are great value @ €1.99 when available

I'd agree with that, my local one (as of last week) still had plenty of "Rough Wave" and "The Other Side" left which are both decent for the money. The Lough Gill Native which they tend to have in over the winter is also decent for me.

Long time since I've brought any roadworks (except the Early Start) or Brown Bear. But I find the O'Shea's/ O'Hara's stuff alright without being up to the Crafty standard. The session, Trick of the Light, was still a regular enough purchase for me - a session IPA was the hole in the crafty line up, but probably filled by Brú now.

The American Brown, Red and Stout out of the Crafty line up for me, fwiw.

MonkstownHoop

but1er wrote: »

Im on a slippy slide down into loving craft beers. After trying a number of stouts ( left hand, o haras, porterhouse, around the clocks, dot brewing) The boss in work has been raving about sierra nevada tropical torpedo so i took a trip down to McHugh's in artane bought two cans of it and picked up hopfully graciosa and rascals fruitroplis and Dot brewings peaches sour

Really hated the rascals couldnt get it into. Really enjoyed the other three. any other tropical type IPAS ill listen lads.

Sunday i took another trip down looking for a dublin larger HopburghH Helles only reason i bough 4 bottles was there header and main picture on there website is a picture of bachelors walk and dead centre is my grandas old jewellers ( Des Byrne Jewellers) so i though i should support. I loved that beer really enjoyed them at 4.90 a bottle for a 500ml bottle i wont buying it every week.

The O'Haras tropical IPA is pretty good, 500ml bottle at €3 and around 7%

recyclops

Macy0161 wrote: »

Wicklow Wolf opening the Taproom this week. Must have the new licence, as growler fills, and no minimum quantity on cans. Will be paying a visit on Friday! No price or stock list yet "coming soon" apparently.

Saw this on their social media, a taproom no more than a 5 minute walk from my house, absolutely glorious news :):)

did like the mention of coffee as well and opening at 8AM, surely tap rooms abide by the same off licence hours or is it different?

L1011

Producers on-licence is 10:00-19:00, 12:30-19:00 Sunday, so 30 mins on off-licences in the morning during the week. That's assuming that is the licence they have; there are only a handful issued so far.

Macy0161

recyclops wrote: »

did like the mention of coffee as well and opening at 8AM, surely tap rooms abide by the same off licence hours or is it different?

Doing coffee too - probably tapping(?) into all the building work as Newtown goes from village to town!

BonnieSituation

Has anyone had the Pineapple Púca yet?

BeerNut

BonnieSituation wrote: »

Has anyone had the Pineapple Púca yet?

Yeah, I liked it. Plenty of pineapple but not so much that it overpowers the sourness. One of the better Púcas, imo.

youcancallmeal

Pen Rua wrote: »

https://craftcentral.ie/collections/may-sale-1

Craft Central are doing a weekend sale. It seems to be predominately the recent US & UK imports marked down by a euro or two.

Just a word of warning, I put in an order at the weekend and picked a few of the American(18th Street, Barrier, Thin Man) beers in the sales. They are all best before January, it could be the canned on date but there is no indication either way? Also one of the 18th Street beers I have was clearly not sealed properly(congealed beer around the rim), I expect it will be flat and gone off when I open it. I should've known better as I rarely drink an imported American beer and think wow this is really nice and fresh.

BaZmO*

youcancallmeal wrote: »

Just a word of warning, I put in an order at the weekend and picked a few of the American(18th Street, Barrier, Thin Man) beers in the sales. They are all best before January, it could be the canned on date but there is no indication either way? Also one of the 18th Street beers I have was clearly not sealed properly(congealed beer around the rim), I expect it will be flat and gone off when I open it. I should've known better as I rarely drink an imported American beer and think wow this is really nice and fresh.

18th Street Beers always have the "Canned" date on them.

Spillage on the rim doesn't indicate that it's not sealed properly, it would more so show that they weren't overly careful when filling.

youcancallmeal

BaZmO* wrote: »

18th Street Beers always have the "Canned" date on them.

Spillage on the rim doesn't indicate that it's not sealed properly, it would more so show that they weren't overly careful when filling.

Ah cool, hope you're right

recyclops

Macy0161 wrote: »

Doing coffee too - probably tapping(?) into all the building work as Newtown goes from village to town!

popped in as I had a spare 15 mins in work, down 50 quid now and 6 cans and full growler heavier, its the same room they served drink in on tour, coffee was lovely.

Had their new limited run cans to buy separately and all the usual suspects handy having it so close save me going to kilcoole to pick up their beers.

Macy0161

recyclops wrote: »

popped in as I had a spare 15 mins in work, down 50 quid now and 6 cans and full growler heavier, its the same room they served drink in on tour, coffee was lovely.

Have the growlers cooling ready to go tomorrow! Probably more breweries should go this route, as I suspect the macros are going to go in hard for the on-trade with offers the publicans can't refuse to crowd out micro breweries.

BeerNut

Macy0161 wrote: »

Probably more breweries should go this route, as I suspect the macros are going to go in hard for the on-trade with offers the publicans can't refuse to crowd out micro breweries.

I'd say it would be tough for most of them to justify, with the extra cost of the licence and being in out-of-the-way locations. Wicklow Wolf was set up to have visitors, not many Irish breweries are.

Twee.

You do really have to build from the start with visitors in mind if that's what you're aiming to do.

Macy0161

I'm not sure Wicklow Wolf did, to be fair. I did the Tour pre-lockdown and the taproom is very much a small corner of the building. It's set up as in it's a big modern building purpose built to be a brewery, so it was planned to some degree. However, it didn't seem that visitors were at the forefront from my observation or from what was said at the tour tbh. It was all about the beer/ capacity/ efficiency.

BeerNut

They definintely said that running events was part of the plan when I visited.

Twee.

Oh I'm not implying it would be done over and above brewery design, efficiency etc, not at all, it's just a tricky thing to have to retrofit depending on your space and location, so ideally you'd plan to some degree at the start, especially if you're custom building. I hope to see more brewery taprooms, it's something the UK industry has that I really wish we had here.
Although I've heard from a few brewers who worked in such places that they didn't like being watched work from behind glass :P

Macy0161

BeerNut wrote: »

They definintely said that running events was part of the plan when I visited.

It was more about the beer when I went, from what I recall - but after the taproom we were straight to the mountkennedy inn, so that could be a factor in my memory

BeerNut

Twee. wrote: »

I've heard from a few brewers who worked in such places that they didn't like being watched work from behind glass :P

Dance, little hop-monkeys!

youcancallmeal

Twee. wrote: »

Although I've heard from a few brewers who worked in such places that they didn't like being watched work from behind glass :P

Probably don't want to the 'magic' of brewing revealed to be fairly mundane in reality

Also this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtqbk9pgPXw

Twee.

youcancallmeal wrote: »

Probably don't want to the 'magic' of brewing revealed to be fairly mundane in reality

Also this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtqbk9pgPXw

99% cleaning :P

Macy0161

Macy0161 wrote: »

I'm not sure Wicklow Wolf did, to be fair. I did the Tour pre-lockdown and the taproom is very much a small corner of the building. It's set up as in it's a big modern building purpose built to be a brewery, so it was planned to some degree. However, it didn't seem that visitors were at the forefront from my observation or from what was said at the tour tbh. It was all about the beer/ capacity/ efficiency.

I found it to be more a tour of a business as opposed to a tour of a brewery. Lots of figures and sales talk more than anything else. It’s very impressive what they’ve built there though.

BeerNut

ReginaldSmythV wrote: »

I found it to be more a tour of a business as opposed to a tour of a brewery. Lots of figures and sales talk more than anything else.

You never know when an undercover shareholder is going to drop in.

Their shareholders would be fairly recognisable

Macy0161

ReginaldSmythV wrote: »

I found it to be more a tour of a business as opposed to a tour of a brewery. Lots of figures and sales talk more than anything else. It’s very impressive what they’ve built there though.

A lot of it was about the environmental aspects and what they were trying to do in that regard when I was there.

Anyway, went to the Taproom over lunch - impressed with the set up compared to what it was at the tour anyway. Proper growler taps, not just normal taps, full range of cans, including the most recent specials. I'd say I'll be a frequent visitor, even for the specials/ cans if not necessarily growler fills.

DelmarODonnell

A friend dropped in today to pick up cans and growlers. He said the guy there was telling him they will be set up for outdoor service on June 7th. Great news, and will be heading down there from Bray to partake! I've only been up there to collect Merch I ordered but surely outdoor area is pretty limitless given the size of the place.

Macy0161

There was a queue so wasn't too much time to chat! I'm not sure how far back they own - houses going in beside them. They looked like they were tidying up outside, but they've put in a few hop vines in space that would've been perfect.

recyclops

They have got rid of a lot of the greenspace recently as they are starting to grow hops on the land there so unsure how much space they will have set aside, its all very good news though and great for the area. Between themselves, bonac gin and wicklow way wines they really could create something special if they all got together and created a mixed space for them all to use.

always annoyed me living here that I had to drive out of the town to actually buy the stuff as the garage was always hit and miss with stock.