The Tallaght strategy

It's a miracle! Though perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that a brewery called Priory, with a comprehensively Catholic theme running across its branding, should be the one that managed to pull a Lazarus act.

We last saw this microbrewery in the south Dublin suburb of Tallaght on these pages in June 2019. "An ambitious set of plans" is what I noted. I don't know how far advanced those got before Covid shut the whole thing down, and with the overall decline in Irish microbrewing, I wasn't expecting to see them back. The announcement in 2023 that the building which houses the brewery -- a café and a lot of empty space when I visited in 2019 -- would be transformed into an indoor food market didn't do much to change my mind. Dublin has serious form on failed indoor food market projects. If it can't be done in the city centre, what chance of doing it in Tallaght? And besides, craft beer is over, and it would be such a 2015 move to put a microbrewery in a food hall.

Nevertheless, the Priory Market project rolled on and, in late June 2025, it opened its doors to the hungry public, the offer including Priory Brewing reborn as a "tank bar" on the site. I went along on the first weekend, genuinely not expecting much. Usually, the brewery and the beer range is the last part of the project to get delivered, if it ever does. I was surprised by what I found.

The food hall was thronged, and all the stalls seemed to be doing brisk business, though without the excessive queues you get at events which don't have their catering logistics in order. Down the back, opposite two outlying food stalls, is the bar. I found perching space across from the window which looks into the production brewery.

Tank means tank, and there are four of them behind the bar, from which beer is poured directly. Original Sin, the flagship IPA, and Venial Sin, its session-strength sibling, have made a return and are two of them. I started with one of the new beers, Helles Fire. This is no still-fermenting murk: the bright tank has left it bright; a perfectly clear golden colour. It's a little light on its feet at 4.3% ABV though I appreciated the cold pour -- 3.3°C according to the readout on the vessel. So it was definitely thirst-quenching, and while it's fairly plain, there is enough of a gentle spongecake sweetness to pass. The finish is as clean as the beer looks, with nary a hint of the off flavours that can bedevil small-batch lagers, and a nicely crisp grain bite on the end. It may be unexciting, but it's very technically proficient. Time and money has been spent on getting it right, and I could taste that.

Also new from the tanks was Atonement, a pale ale. This is in the old American style, a deep amber colour and packed out with crystal malt, contrasting with sharp US hops. A fruit candy aroma leads to a toffee-first flavour, although it's light at 4.5% ABV, and not at all sticky. There's a tannic note as a reminder that English bitter is a close relation, and a touch of crisp roast to help dry it out. The hop tang is a little bit lemonade and a little bit aspirin; unsubtle and clashing with the malt side, I thought. The intention seems to be something like Sierra Nevada pale ale, but there's none of that one's perfumed subtlety. This time, the technical proficiency can't hide the issues with the underlying recipe.

But the tank bar has more than just tanks: there's a sizeable array of keg taps on the bar, all Priory-branded except for Whiplash's Slow Life, which seems to be covering them for a dark beer for now. My in-built cynicism couldn't help wondering if some or all of these were brewed elsewhere, but then why bother with the tanks if you're shipping beer in?

I had a half of Vice Beer, the 5% ABV weissbier. Here the brewery's tendency towards clarity is a little less appropriate, because there's none of the cloudiness that has been this style's hallmark since before anyone in New England thought to make an IPA. That seems to have added a sharpness to it, manifesting initially in the slightly hot butane aroma. And while there's banana in the flavour, it's greenly acidic, which isn't unpleasant, but is quite different from the soft and sweet effect one normally gets. The hops are more pronounced than usual, with a bite of celery and pak choi. It's a valid take on the style, reminding me of the crisper, pointier, sort of weizen from north German breweries, and Flensburger in particular. If that's your particular vice, jump in. I prefer the more cuddly Bavarian take, however.

And we finish on yet another central European style: pilsner. Impeccable was also on the keg lines and arrived slightly hazy. Freshness was very much in evidence here, the aroma giving faint but persistent cut grass, like the patio doors are open and the lawn outside has just been mown. Though only 4.7% ABV it has a satisfyingly chewy texture and that adds extra punch to the noble hops, flourishing outwards into a whole bouquet of garden herbs, with basil and rosemary the ones I noticed most. Despite the density, this is still an excellent warm-day refresher and mid-session palate scrubber, and again remarkably free of flaws for a newly-created brewpub lager. Since they can do pils well, nothing else should be a problem.

I didn't revisit their double IPA, and the red ale will have to wait to next time. On the menu but not yet pouring were a stout and a bock, and there was a tap badge for a sour ale which had also yet to materialise. The ambition is incredible for an Irish brewpub but they really do seem to have the ability to pull it off. I hope the momentum stays with them and that they get the kind of local support which seems to be keeping the Rascals taproom blazing. This taproom is a new and rare jewel in Dublin's beer scene and I dearly want to see it thrive.

Parp!

Trouble Brewing's new one, Fuzzy Logic, was commissioned by the Bull & Castle for their "Irishtoberfest" (sigh) which runs all this month. It's a 4.7% ABV weizen and arrives an opaque and murky pale orange-yellow with little by way of head. Its aroma is probably its most striking element: sulphurous, with more than a suggestion of cabbagey flatulence about it.

Past that there's a very dry weizen: all crunchy grain and completely lacking in banana fruitiness. There's a hint of clove oil and the official tasting notes suggest vanilla which I think I can detect too. Hops are an afterthought, showing up waxy and bitter at the very end. The carbonation is light for the style, and coupled with the dryness it makes it crisp and refreshing.

It's not the world's greatest wheat beer, but if you prefer the cleaner, more austere Flensburger style weizens to the banana bombs then this does the job admirably.

The beer from nowhere

I had it in my head that all food and drink sold in the EU had to have a statement of origin on it somewhere, even if it's nothing more useful than "Produce of the EU". As far as I can tell on looking, however, it only applies "where failure to give such particulars might mislead the consumer to a material degree as to the true origin or provenance of the foodstuff" (Directive 2000/13/EC). So I guess we can assume from the name that Nobelaner is from Germany. Yet of the undoubtedly fine Teutonic city of Nobelan I can find no trace at all. Perhaps it only appears once every century and dumps a truckful of lager before vanishing again.

I picked this up dirt-cheap in Lidl to give it a residency as my curry lager. Absolutely no markings on bottle or sleeve say anything about where it's from, only that it's made for Lidl UK & Ireland.

It could be from anywhere really, as the beer tastes of almost nothing. Concentrate hard when you sniff and there's a ghost of hops, but nothing past it. It tastes like fizzy water, even before the vindaloo gets near it. Back to the Flensburger Weizen for me, I think. That comes from Flensburg. It's in Germany, though only just.

Hefe nice day

I've been using the recent spell of warm weather to work gradually through my stash of hefeweizens. It's a style I've gone off a bit of late, reverting only to the odd Flensburger Weizen to go with a curry (and to add the swingtop bottle to my hoard of reusables). So, what's been happening with weissbier in my absence?

O'Brien's made a bit of a song and dance about the arrival of Erdinger Urweisse a few months back. Despite the brewery's reputation for blandness, they are capable of the odd gem (Pikantus, for instance) so I reckoned this was worth a go. It certainly has a lot more happening than your standard Erdinger: lots of big banana flavours and a distinct alcoholic heat, despite being just 5.2% ABV. In the finish up, however, there's just not enough here to keep me entertained and I won't be rushing off for another.

Unertl Weissbier Bock looked much more promising: a full 6.7% ABV and pouring a gorgeous shade of chestnut. The first signal that things were not going according to plan came with the aroma. Beyond the fruity esters coming from the yeast which was floating on the head, there was no smell; no caramel sweetness, no roastiness, no crisp dryness: nothing. The texture was the next let-down: thin and exceptionally gassy where mellow smoothness might be a reasonable expectation. And finally the flavour. The yeast is doing its utmost to give a bit of banana character, but beneath this veneer there's a rough and woody vibe -- bark, mulch and rubber -- not enough to spoil or unbalance the beer, but hard to escape when there's not much else going on inside. Mrs Beer Nut claims that there's a vanilla element too, but adds that while it might make a decent sorbet, this is not a beer for drinking.

Last up a weiss that has been getting very mixed reviews since MolsonCoors began shipping it over earlier in the year: Grolsch Weizen. Pouring it into my Grolsch glass was a mistake as the headkeeper made it go mental. On a warm evening after a long day at work I do not want to spend ten thirsty minutes trying to get my beer under control. When I finally got to it, my first thought was "watery". But then the pineapples kicked in: big, fresh and juicy and marvellously thirst-quenching. It's not watery, it's light. Perfect for charging through cold and won't leave you feeling like you've just had half a litre of 5.3% ABV beer. Which you have. I would return to this for future al fresco refreshment, certainly long before MolsonCoors's other wheat beer Blue Moon.

On this showing I doubt I'll be converting to all-weissbier diet this summer, but it definitely has its place, with curry and without.

Bitter pils

Above in Dundrum, Deveney's have a four-for-a-tenner deal on Flensburger at the moment. The 50cl brown swingtop is highly prized by the home brewer, so I picked up a few packs of Flensburger Pilsener, reckoning it'd do as the house curry lager for a while. But as always: before the vindaloo, the review.

It's bitter stuff, and not in a nice way. Seriously astringent with a sort of damp and musty flavour when cold. As it warms I get herbal waxy honey notes which render it a bit more drinkable, though not quite enough to make it enjoyable.

Still, never fear, the chillis are here, and their heat will make the nasty pils go away. Oh! Except they don't. What traces of clean lager malt were here get swept away by the curry leaving just the off flavours. Not even a Konkan vindaloo can kill this bad boy.

Sitting hard on the Baltic coast not far from the North Sea, I'll bet Flensburg is a pretty harsh place to live. If I'm right, their dour pils certainly captures the essence of the town.

With steadfast effort and lots of hot curry, I managed to get through all of my stash of pils, and next time I was in Deveney's I figured I may as well try the Weizen. This was much better. There's none of your fancy-free soft and buxom alpine wheatbeer flavours here, however. While the banana fruitiness is definitely present, its high spirits are tempered by a scowling dry, almost sulphurous, character that makes for a balanced and incredibly drinkable beer. The notion of a crisp weissbier sounds all wrong but it really works, in an uncomplicated spartan sort of way. I think this might be a much better match for my curry this weekend.