So May came along and I celebrated my birthday, as I sometimes like to do, down in Kilkenny at their Roots Festival. While there I stopped into the excellent Brewery Corner which has a great range of Irish beers on draught and I enjoyed a pint of O’Hara’s Irish Red Ale.
My trip to London was another highlight, I made it my business to fit in a couple of epic pubs while there. I started with a visit to The White Horse on Parson’s Green, where I first had the unfiltered Pilsner Urquell, if you haven’t had it yet you can get it now in The Bridge 1859 in Dublin.
I also loved Duke’s Brew and Que where I was first able to sup the marvellous Beavertown beers on draught. And it would have been remiss of me not to check out a Brew Dog pub so I headed to the Shepherds Bush bar where the Oskar Blues G’Knight was one highlight.
June brought Bloom in the Phoenix Park which had a great bar tent featuring many of Ireland’s finest breweries.
In June I also was given a bottle of Beoir #1 by Wayne ‘Irish Beer Snob’ Dunne. What a beer that was! A real hop bomb…
The Fatted Calf in Glasson played host to the June meet up of the Athlone Beer Club. Tasty food and lovely beer meant it was a memorable night. Those white pudding balls went down in history.
June was capped off by the European Beer Bloggers Conference which was held in The Church in Dublin. Myself and my fellow bloggers were educated AND treated to some serious culinary and beery treats.
July’s highpoint was the visit Athlone Beer Club paid to the Kinnegar Brewery up in Donegal. Rick and Libby the owners were really honest, informative and entertaining, thinking about the last year and a bit, they are just one of the great couples I have met working in the Irish Brewing Industry, nice people and great beer, this is why I enjoy doing this. I highly recommend a visit to the tap room in Rathmullan House and if you really want to spoil yourself/ someone special book in for a stay!
On our way home we called in to Dicey Riley’s and sampled the Donegal Atlantic Amber and picked up a couple of beers from their award winning off licence. I’ll pause there and pick up with August in a couple of days. Sláinte!
Awesome adventure. I must admit, I would love to be faced with that wall of beer. So many choices!
They have over 500 Irish and international beers in a small enough off licence!