It was our wedding anniversary over the weekend and myself and my wife decided to go out for dinner. We chose Thyme in Athlone as neither of us had been there, it’s open a good few years and praise has been heaped upon it.
I saw that they had O’Hara’s beers in bottles so I said I would have a few to accompany my meal. My wonderful wife had a ‘Mellow Cider’ from Madden’s. I’ve appointed her official cider correspondent for this blog. She said it was ‘grand’!
I had a crispy hens egg with salt beef potato cake and brown sauce to start and I had a Curim Celtic Wheat Beer with that. They went very well together with the light crisp beer providing a great contrast with the starch of the potato.
For my main course I had the burger made with beef from Castlemine farm in Roscommon and topped with Carrigaline smoked cheese. I thought that the O’Hara’s Irish Stout would be the right job with that. It was perfection itself. The burger succulent and chips were crispy, the whole shebang was spot on.
The best was saved til last though with the chocolate fondant and O’Hara’s Red Ale Ice Cream. Now I’ve heard of beer floats but this is my first taste of beer ice cream, it was certainly worth waiting for! The fondant was a real treat as well. Oh, and I didn’t forget to have a Red Ale along with my dessert! Top marks for Thyme.
It would be no harm for restaurants and gastropubs in this country to start offering beer pairing suggestions, so far I’ve only seen it a couple of times. Just a thought…