Tag: Ireland

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A Mad March Hare

Despite being married to a half Irish lass, I have not ever tasted a proper poitín aka Mountain Dew.  That changed this year, when I bought a bottle from Mad March Hare.

I did smile at the “quietly distilled” wording on the label as well as the triple distilled declaration because I have learned a bit about the number of distillations and how each cleans up impurities but also strip away flavor, generally, of course.

Enough wordplay, what does this poteen taste like? Drinking from the logo’d mug that came with the bottle, the aroma was strong. Alcohol and minty. The eyes do sting a bit bringing mug to lips but the taste is brisk and botanical. Mint and herbs for me with a burn down the pipe.

One of the recipes on the website was for an Irish Mule with ginger beer and lime and bitters which after tasting the poitín neat makes me wonder who would win that powerful flavor battle royale. I would instead go the martini route. Have the botanicals from the Vermouth work with the mint.

I like this neat but could see it working as a cocktail minor player more.

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Leprechaun Beer Review – Guinness vs. Guinness 0.0

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I tend to stay in on the drinking holidays and today I am doing the same with a taste test. Guinness vs. Itself but its non-alcoholic sibling.

And to make it a little more interesting, gonna do this blind and see if the 0 is easy to taste. My wife laughed at the suggestion since most of my N/A experience boils down to “too thin.”

But this blind nearly fooled me. They both pour that familiar darl brown almost black. Both have the widget The 0 Draught has a more pronounced Guinness smoke and chocolate combo compared to the draught we know and love on this particular day in particular. But, the taste was noticeably thinner with a touch of wine sour as well. That lack of fullness was enough for me to semi-comfortably pick it out.

The aroma was probably amplified for the 0 to compensate and in that lies a lesson for others making N/A beers. Pull focus away from the thinness inherent in these beers with aroma and you can get close to the original.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!

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A Book & A Beer – Normal People by Sally Rooney

Sally Rooney has gotten a lot of press for her books but it took me awhile to hear about her, and so instead of picking up her latest book ” Beautiful World, Where Are You?”, I chose an earlier one, Normal People.

It follows Marianne and Connell two high schoolers about to leave County Sligo for college in Dublin and how they weave in and out of each other’s lives as the years pass.

Normally, I am not fond of the will they – won’t they being stretched past all reasonable bounds. If you can’t write past meet cute then I lose interest. But the two leas characters in this book are moving, both through life and emotionally and by making them three-dimensional, what could be contrived re-meetings are more akin to two people orbiting each other. I thought the book ended well and would be up to have Rooney re-visit these characters when she and they are older.

Because this book moves through the lives of it protagonists, a flight of beers from your cellar might be in order. Maybe a flight of Anchor Christmas or the Anniversary beers from Firestone Walker.

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Latin for Brewster

Found another beer and history website for all of us that geek out on the longer arc of beer history. Written by Dr. Christina Wade, Braciatrix covers women in beer history and Wade is both a medieval scholar and BJCP judge so she has some serious bona fides.

Definitely start with her BeerHerstories list and then make sure to be on the look out for her book when that comes out.

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A Book & A Beer – Night Boat to Tangier

Two men sitting around a dock waiting for a relative to arrive (or maybe depart) by boat may make some think of the famous play Waiting for Godot and you would be right to think that the slim Night Boat to Tangier treads that territory. Two aging Irishman with a past of misdeeds and sexual dalliances are looking for the daughter of one (or is it the others) who left three years ago and hasn’t been heard of since.

The book made the New York Times Best of the Year list but it was a little too cold and calculating and left chunks of the two leads lives open to interpretation. There were repetitive lines as well that I understand were part of a poetic musicality, keeping up a pace but it did not work for me. Overall, I was more interested in the daughter character and her arc and with an interlude at a haunted housing development in Ireland than in Tangier.

To drink with this book, I would recommend finding a flight of Witbiers that utilize different spices. Eagle Rock Brewery has their Manifesto as well as variants (one with lemongrass) that would mimic some of the spices used in the food that you might find in Tangier.

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Guin & Timm

I do not know when this beer came about, if it’s a retired beer or if it is being sold in the US but when I saw that Guinness spun two of their beers into a blend with Timmermans of Belgium, I really wanted it.  This Lambic meets stout is a mix of Guinness West Indies Porter (1801), Guinness Special Export (first brewed in 1944 exclusively for John Martin) and Timmermans Oude Kriek (the world’s oldest lambic brewery).

The description from the Timmermans website sounds delicious, “A unique dark beer with a subtle pink hue in the foam. Aromas of chocolate, oak & cherry. Full flavoured and beautifully balanced.”

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A Book & A Beer – The Milkman

The Milkman was passed down from my Man Booker Prize fan (and beer fan) Rich. This book requires getting into a reading rhythm. It is a little stream of conscious, lots of tangents and backtracking and the there are no names. Just Maybe Boyfriend, Ma and, of course, Milkman.

But when you get going you start to feel for the protagonist. She is trying, at a young age, to navigate minefields of social convention, war and duplicity and hormones and parents. And she doesn’t hesitate to think back on actions and words as wrong at the moment and wish she had done different. You really begin to root for her to succeed in life and to find the more that she wants instead of the life being laid out in this Irish town.

To drink with this book, I would try to find a brewery with a Pink Boots collaborative beer on tap or in cans (Pizza Port has one). Almost as hard to find would be a Dry Irish Stout but that would set the mood as well. Or you could encourage the wild and crazy and have a lactose-y Milkshake IPA to nod at the Milkman of the title.

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Beer Documentary Review – The Irish Pub

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In our (and my) rush to talk about new beers and new breweries, it is easy to forget the third places that have existed for years and really serve a vital role. The simple pub.

There is a scene in The Irish Pub where one of the owners of a traditional Irish pub states that you don’t need a psychiatrist if you can pop dish to pub and have a “chat” with the other regulars. There is truth to that.

This documentary on Netflix runs an hour and fifteen minutes and does a fair survey of pubs from big city Dublin to other corners and crannies of Ireland. Topics like, the Snug, music, economics, regulars and others get asked at each locale and you learn not only about the pubs and people but about the country too.

You could argue that this isn’t beer related or craft beers related. And you would be right. This is most certainly NOT about beer or whiskey but rather the people that serve it and consume it. The cinematography is well done. It is easy to photograph a pub exterior (which they do) but another thing to light the interior of a bar area that re-creates what it would look like if you were drinking there while seeing the person interviewed.

Check this doc out with a pint of Guinness in hand.

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Irish-American Lager

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I have nothing against the idea of brand extension on the face of it.  You make one type of pie and it’s a good pie, then make another flavor or do another pastry.  Same goes with beer.  You make a great stout, you should be able to also brew a black lager if you want to. Or even an Irish conglomerate spin on an American water lager.

Where brand extension goes awry is the “Why?’.  Are you doing it challenge yourself?  Cool.  Is it a style that complements your current offerings.  Again, cool.  Is it a stylistic one-off or seasonal?  Brew on then.

But when you are doing it because your “growth” is slowing or because the “market” demands it then consumers (and especially craft beer people) quickly see through it as a ploy and nothing more.  And to a certain extent, that is also fine if you are making a good beer for the wrong reason.  The reason being a mere grab at the wallet with NEW!

But what is sad is that there is a huge missed opportunity here.  Guinness could have done a peat smoked barley Irish rauchbier.  Or something else that utilizes a local ingredient or theme.  Instead they are doing a lowest common denominator “American” lager?  As if that is needed.  Quality Kolsch we need.  Quality Pilsner we need.  Quality blonde ales we need.  But a (presumably) adjunct heavy light lager?  I think that not-so-prized category is covered.