27 November 2014

Brown out

I don't know if it's entirely fair to be including the fourth-biggest brewing multinational in this week's series. C&C recently set up their own brewery at headquarters in Clonmel where they're currently pumping out the rather lacklustre Clonmel 1650 lager. But before that, they took an almost-total stake in the 5 Lamps microbrewery in Dublin, a two-hander run by Brian and William, which appears to have complete freedom to brew what they like.

With the lack of diktats comes a lack of logistical support, I guess, which is why the tap badge in The Norseman for The Tenters Brown Ale, their latest, was a circle of paper sellotaped to the keg font, with the name picked out on a portable label printer. Now that's craft. The Tenters is everything you want from a brown ale: a crisp dry bite of roasty grain husk next to lusciously smooth milk chocolate and slightly salty caramel. Like their Blackpitts Porter, it's a solid, no-frills drinking beer with plenty of flavour.

The Tenters is easily the best of the beers I've reviewed this week and while I think corporate structure rarely if ever correlates to beer quality, the method of production here may just contain a wee clue, a signpost, for any of the other big brewing concerns interested in breaking into this new and possibility lucrative market segment, Beer For People Who Enjoy The Taste Of Beer.
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7 comments:

  1. Oblivious10:19 am

    "I think corporate structure rarely if ever correlates to beer quality, the method of production here may just contain a wee clue, a signpost, for any of the other big brewing concerns interested in breaking into this new and possibility lucrative market segment"

    But i suspect that economies of scale will eventually force beers on to there main the systems (national roll out etc) and thus suffer there full horrors of corporate brewing. ?

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    1. The Beer Nut10:25 am

      Yes but Drygate. Drygate is the way forward: deliberately small, proper brewing cred and it costs the multinational partner buttons. Molson Coors knows how to work this; C&C plainly does too. The big boys are meeting the expanding small players in the middle ground and I think that's good for choice.

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  2. Reuben Gray - TaleOfAle2:28 pm

    I meant to give it a go at the B&C last week but suffering from a cold, I just couldn't do a new beer justice.

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    1. The Beer Nut2:31 pm

      Yeah, nice and all that it is, I doubt much of the flavour would come through over a cold.

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  3. Rob Sterowski11:20 pm

    Fourth biggest?

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    1. The Beer Nut11:24 pm

      The fourth biggest of those that brew in Ireland, after Diageo, Heineken and Molson Coors -- the subjects of the previous three posts.

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    2. Anonymous11:44 am

      The St Mel’s brown is lovely I got different tasting notes than you got, for me it had slight caramel, then milk chocolate finishing off dry with cashew nuts. Shame the brewery is closed, hopefully it is only temporary but if it is permanent then the brewing books should be given to Ron Pattinson.

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