What a year it’s been, I was lucky enough to be able to drink a few great beers along the way.
Back in January I visited my first tap room at the Yazoo Brewery in Nashville. I also made a valiant attempt at getting a saucer on the wall of the Flying Saucer in Memphis. Sadly it wasn’t possible in the space of a couple of days!
Closer to home I sampled 8 Degrees Back to Black collection, Aztec Stout which had chillies in it, Zeus Black IPA and the 2013 Russian Imperial Stout.
February is Alltech Beer Festival time and I thoroughly enjoyed the second year of this event. I remember being impressed by N17’s Oatmeal Stout, Black’s of Kinsale’s Black IPA as well as English brewery Redwell. I also picked up a few bottles of Kinnegar’s Farmhouse beers more on them later!
After a chat with Sean Kelly or The Crafty Hoor as he’s now calling himself I hosted the first Athlone Beer Cup in Maguire’s. We voted Founder’s All Day IPA our favourite beer on the night. Also in February I joined many others in a Blind Twitter Tasting of Brown Paper Bag’s Gose, even though we didn’t know that was it’s name at the time. A very unusual beer it is too with salt and coriander among the ingredients.
In March I attended the frankly disappointing Irish Craft Beer Festival in the IFC. There would’ve been more atmosphere on the moon and many of the beers I wanted to try were sold out with a day of the event left. We held the inaugural Athlone Beer Club in The Malt House and it was very well attended and great fun. The sign of things to come.
In April I checked out Porterhouse’s Irish Beer Festival where I tried Metalman’s Unite Pale Ale and N17’s Rye Ale. The Brewsters Grainne Walsh and Sarah Roarty kicking ass! Athlone man David Clarke brought a serious haul of American beers over and a few of us sampled Stone Enjoy By, Rueze from The Bruery, Dogfishhead’s 120 Minute IPA and Founder’s Kentucky Breakfast Stout. Cheers Dave! I’ll leave it there for now and return with part deux during the week. Sláinte!
