The best fest in the west

The Black Box is a slightly shabby theatre/function room in a retail park on the edge of Galway city. Yesterday it played host to the first Great Irish Beer Festival, an event viewed with no small amount of scepticism by the Irish online beer community, mainly because so few of the country's brewers signed up for it. The Porterhouse and Galway Hooker had their own stands, but most of the rest were run by importers and distributors. With the emphasis on bottled product, then, it was clear this wouldn't be in the style of a UK real ale festival. It was still highly enjoyable, however.

While waiting for the doors to open, I noted with trepidation the Macnas van in the car park. It must have been there in some other capacity, however, and there were mercifully no giant papier maché pints dancing in formation through the venue. You just never know in Galway. Inside, attendees were issued with a starter pack of beer chips and a surprisingly decent plastic beer receptacle. This could be rinsed between drinks at the various water coolers around the room, which was just as well since a burst pipe cut off the building's mains water supply for a couple of hours in the middle of the event. Some time after it came back, the slops bins all disappeared from the floor, making glass rinsing very difficult indeed.

As I mentioned, just two Irish brewers were running stalls, though there was also Moling's and O'Hara's on tap. Lithuanica, distributors of the Švyturys range, were handing out mini-basketballs and guides to Vilnius: European Capital of Culture 2009. InBev had the best swag, though: Leffe glasses and Beck's hats. In fact, the InBev stand had an extensive range of glassware on display. Play to your strengths is the lesson here, I guess...

The entertainment was mercifully acoustic, and the only Heineken and Guinness taps on show were for display purposes only, as part of a keg hire company's exhibit.

To the beer, then. I mentioned on Friday that the promise of Budvar Dark was one of the major draws. It took some concerted searching to find it, the relevant barman having at first denied stocking it. Thankfully one of my ICB colleagues persisted, and there was a brief roaring trade in the Czech black lager. Like most of the bottled beers, it was being served inappropriately cold and I was at first surprised by how sour Budvar Dark is. After a few minutes of warming this mellowed and an almost stout-like roasted grain flavour came through. The other eastern European I tried was Švyturys Baltas, a wheat beer. It's served with lemon and is quite sparkly: hallmarks of a Belgian wit, but the flavour is fruity, not spicy, with distinct banana notes, edging it closer to the German weiss style. An odd and interesting beer.

Aussie beers seem to be growing in popularity in Ireland, though as yet we have few decent ones. I tried a Boag's Strongarm at the festival: a powerfully sweet and malty golden lager with a dry bitter hops bite at the end. Surprisingly, given the taste and the name, this weighs in at only 5% ABV.

Most of the rest of what I drank was English. I have little to say about Wychwood's Goliath: it's rather sugary and not to my taste. BeeWyched gives off a pungent hops aroma, though this doesn't come through in the strong perfumy taste. Interesting, but you couldn't drink a whole lot of it. Finally, Bah Humbug is Wychwood's Christmas ale and is much lighter than a Christmas ale has any right to be. The flavour is sweet, but there's not a whole lot else going on. I wish now I'd spent more time sampling the beers on offer from Black Sheep, which are rare in Dublin but apparently quite common in Galway's bottle shops. The only one I had was Riggwelter, a marvellous black ale, with a strong caramel aroma and a complex taste full of sticky malt and bitter chocolate.

Everything else I tasted I'd had before, though it was the first time I tried the reformulated Árainn Mhór Rua, now down to 5.2% from 6, due to a tendency to knock punters on their arses rather too quickly, which in turn was adversely affecting sales. It was great chatting to Aidan and Ronan of Galway Hooker as well. Thanks for your hospitality, guys.

All-in-all, a few organisational wrinkles to be ironed out, but generally a positive start to what will hopefully become a regular event. And here's hoping the next Great Irish Beer Festival will properly be a festival of great Irish beer.

Baltika bingo

Eyes down, ladies and gentlemen. First out it's... Baltika 4. Number 4 is the St. Petersburg brewer's dark lager and is a heavy, sticky ale with very little carbonation. The colour is a startlingly bright shade of red and there's that weird mushroomy flavour I found with Árainn Mhór Rua. It's not at all unpleasant, and the sheer weight of flavour means it can be enjoyed very cold. You wouldn't want more than one, however.

And next out... Baltika 6. This is their Baltic porter, and quite a sour one. It's a full 7% though tastes much lighter and has a lot of the earthiness of Baltika 4. Instead of the caramel, however, there's a dry, burnt toast effect. Not, generally speaking, what I'm after in a porter. But that's the luck of the draw.

Baltika bingo: marginally more fun than Russian roulette.

The Irish diaspora

The label in front of me says:
"Brewed in the EU
Arainn Mhor Brewing Company
Árainn Mhór Island
County Donegal
Ireland"

So one could be forgiven for thinking that Árainn Mhór Bán is an Irish beer. But it isn't. Those in the know tell me that it, and its sister-ale Rua, are actually made some miles from Donegal, in Belgium. This kind of disingenuity annoys me, and frankly I'm surprised that there's money to be made from it. Anyway...

Marketing guff aside, what's the beer like? Bán is a cloudy orange colour, aiming for affinity with German weissbier but with more of a prickly fizz than any of them. The flavour is quite different too, with none of the characteristic fruit or spice at the centre. What you get instead is an odd earthy, mushroomy hum. The same thing is present in the Rua, but it's much less noteworthy in an ale. In a weiss it wouldn't seem weird if there was enough of a flavour to cover it, but here there isn't. In all it's not unpleasant, just a bit odd, but mainly bland.

All Boon and no Bull

Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that I recently went off on one about Dublin off-licences. The same rant pretty much applies to Dublin pubs as well: that despite their international reputation the vast majority are peddling industrially-manufactured blandness to meet customer demand for same.

Dublin's two brewpubs are exceptions, as is the Bull & Castle, a new gastropub operated by the FXB restaurant chain which opened last year on the site of the Castle Inn. On my first visit I noticed that they were taking their beer seriously and had a fairly extensive and interesting list. My review of Árainn Mhór Rua was based on a bottle from their stocks. I thought little more about the place until the lads over at Irish Craft Brewer mentioned that the Bull & Castle had opened a beerhall and begun "The Beerhall Challenge" -- challengees are given a shortlist of 30 beers to drink (responsibly, without a time limit) and on completion are awarded an engraved glass kept on the premises for their personal use. Last night I signed up. There are very few beers on the list that I haven't already tried and I've already made mention here of a number of them, but any that are new to me or otherwise worthy I will be blogging about.

So, from last night's tastings came Oude Gueze Boon : one of the super-dry, golden lambics made in Brussels, spontaneously fermented by naturally-occurring yeast that lives wild in the area. The supreme champion of this style is Cantillon, made at a craft brewery which doubles as the Gueze Museum. The version Boon make isn't half bad. The nose is very similar to Cantillon -- the dry earthiness of brick-vaulted cellars. On the palate it just tips over into being sour, which I'm sure is intended, but which makes it that little bit harder to drink. You wouldn't necessarily be adding fruit syrup to it, but you can see why some people might.

I strongly urge anyone in Dublin and interested in decent beer to get up to the Bull & Castle. It has certainly opened my eyes regarding what an Irish pub can be. This the The Beer Nut's 100th post and I feel like I'm just getting started...

Ulster Reds

Northern Ireland hasn't been dealt the best of hands when it comes to beer. The dominance of Diageo and Bass meant that for years bar patrons had little to choose from between Harp and Tennents; Smithwicks and Bass. Things are slowly changing, however, with Kilkeel's Whitewater brewery leading the charge. Belfast Ale is the flagship, a red bitter which I found a bit rough round the edges. It's definitely complex, with hoppy bitterness and lots of fruit, but the bold flavours tend to compete with each other, making for an intense but confusing experience. Nevertheless, this is a conscientiously fashioned beer which hints of a time ages past when all beer tasted like this.

Moving up the ladder there's Clotworthy Dobbin, named after a legendary Belfast brewer, apparently. It's similar to Belfast Ale, but much more coherent. Bitter in the extreme, though smoother and altogether more rounded.

Still in Ulster, but far north and west of Kilkeel, there's a brewery on the Donegal island of Árainn Mhór. I had a chance to try their red ale Rua, which is a cloudy, bottle-conditioned Irish red, weighing in at a whopping 6% ABV. The result is an exceptionally bitter ale, full of green-tasting hops. After the initial shock, it's quite a pleasant, sippable beer. The other flavours -- fruit, candy, spice -- do come out from under the bitterness eventually, however there's room for a bit more craft and subtlety in this one, just like its counterparts from the east coast.