How very retro

If this was the other other sort of beer blog, the sort that reports interesting things from the world of beer, there'd be a post about how a group of Galway-based archaeologists have theorised that the ancient stone mounds called fulacht fiadh scattered about the Irish countryside were used for brewing beer, and that they attempted to recreate the ancient brewing process, and that the results were mostly surprisingly drinkable -- despite the opinion of one "Guinness and Bulmer's man" in this video. (Mind you, it was made with proper beer yeast supplied by the Galway Hooker brewery -- should've gone for something wilder, I reckon.) But the story has already been adequately covered by the beer blogging world at the likes of A Good Beer Blog and Lyke2Drink, for example. There's even a Beer Haiku on it, though for the record we're talking long before the Dark Ages here: by that time brewing was already the monks' domain.

But since this isn't that sort of blog, have some random ramblings about a beer I found. Actually, I was looking for an unhopped beer for this post, since hops wouldn't have been part of the ancient Irish brewing scene. Unfortunately, unhopped beers in Dublin off licences, other than the mighty Fraoch, are as rare as hen's teeth (unlike Hen's Tooth, which is readily available), so I've settled for an Aussie craft brew called Black Wattle Superior, which is hopped but is also flavoured with wattle seed which, the interweb tells me, comes from acacia trees.

It pours a beautiful clear amber-red with a lasting off-white head. The dominant flavour is malt with a gentle roasted barley character. I'm not quite sure where the wattle seed comes in. The mouthfeel is quite thick, but in a smooth and satisfying way. Even though it's not as out-of-the-ordinary as I had hoped for, I approve of this beer. Perhaps it's more distinctive when fresh: the bottle I have is a couple of weeks past-date, always a hazard with unusual beers in Dublin. Still, it's not like it's been sitting in a trough in rural Galway for the last three thousand years...