Liam Hanlon was good enough to join us in The Malt House last night for Athlone Beer Club. He is one of the owners and brewers from St Mel’s, Longford. He treated us to a couple of samples of their current offerings. Firstly we had the Beer Garden Wit which was brewed with local Elderflower and oats. It’s a lovely beer and it was well received.
Next we had the Neomexicanus, which came with a great story about how they got the hops from the Benedictine monks in New Mexico. Liam suspects they only sold them to him (first time to anyone outside the USA ) because of the name of the brewery. It’s a fruity Brown Ale that’s very drinkable. One of the group, who shall remain nameless, was able to confirm that as he recently put away a large number of bottles. Of course we couldn’t possibly condone that sort of thing.
Liam told us that there was no Neomexicanus left in the brewery and, as it’s part of their new ‘Black Label’ series it won’t be brewed again, so if you see it on the shelf, pick up a bottle or two. Liam brought along a couple of bags of different Neomexicanus hops which he kindly gave to the home brewers of the group. Hopefully they’ll concoct something interesting for us to try at a meeting nearer to Christmas.
Thanks to everyone who came along, thanks to The Malt House for looking after us once again and a big thank you to Liam for a very entertaining and educational evening. Sláinte!