Round Ireland with a thirst, part 5: Kilkenny

Journey's end is Kilkenny, one of my favourite cities in Ireland, if you can avoid the stag and hen parties. A large part of town is still occupied by the defunct Smithwick's brewery (last seen in this post) and there have been moves by independent players over the years to bring a bit of authenticity back to Kilkenny's reputation as a city of beer. In 2014 local boy Ger Costello launched his own brand of red ale around the pubs of Kilkenny and it's still going strong though a standalone brewery has yet to materialise.

Now another approach has been taken by none other than the heirs of the Smithwick family themselves, again with a contract-brewed red ale, released under their "Sullivan's" marque.

This isn't the family's first attempt to break into the independent beer scene. Back in the late 1990s, during the first flush of Irish microbrewing, the Smithwicks intended to open their own brewery in Kilkenny, as well as a brewpub in a Dublin martello tower. The plans foundered when Diageo took exception to the words "Kilkenny" and "Smithwick" being used anywhere near beer that wasn't theirs. The Smithwicks became a successful legal dynasty after leaving brewing so one assumes that this time out they've done their homework on the intellectual property side. Diageo may no longer brew in the marble city but they still have a prominent visitors' centre, and the close association of the Smithwick's and Kilkenny beer brands with the town is something I imagine they'll want to keep as exclusive as they can.

Sullivan's has set up across the river in an ex-garden centre next door to The Wine Centre on John Street. Last week the company brought a group of media types down for an overnighter and a looksee. The Taproom is the brand's front-of-house, a small bar with a spacious back yard and a mural telling the story of the old Sullivan brewery in Kilkenny, related to the Smithwicks through marriage. Sullivan's was subsumed into the Smithwick's brewery in 1918 after 216 years of trading, though the family has retained the rights to the name. There's a Speidel pilot kit on site but plans for a full production facility across the courtyard are still, well, plans, with beer being produced at Boyne Brewhouse for the moment. Former Smithwick's Head Brewer Ian Hamilton has been recruited to oversee that side of the operation.

The first beer out is called Maltings (here's why) and it's 4% ABV. It's darker than your typical Irish red, a deep shade of garnet, almost brown. The speciality grains are Cara Red and roast barley and they do all the heavy lifting in the flavour, leaving it with a lot of residual caramelised sugars and a hefty, almost burnt, roasted quality. The hops represent as only a very slight green vegetal tang, in the aroma and on the finish. I was pleasantly surprised to find that despite the sweetness it's still quite sessionable -- the roastiness dries it out enough to keep the caramel from sticking to your palate.

One could make the case that the last thing Irish beer needs is another mid-strength caramelly red ale, but if it's going to get one, it may as well be this.

The Maltings was on draught but in the Taproom fridge there was another Sullivan's beer, Birchfield Barley Wine. Ian made this on the Spiedel so it's not yet a commercial brew, evidenced in part by the somewhat vague "ABV 7.8-8.1%" on the label. I admit I hadn't made the connection to Smithwick's Barley Wine but Ian said that the recipe was influenced by that beer, and another late example of the style he used to make, Phoenix Barley Wine.

It's unsurprisingly boozy with a definite Belgian character: the plum and raisin taste and smell of a dubbel. The finish is quick and, like the red, there's a tiny flash of green acidity. While a bit too marker-pen hot at the moment, after two or three years in the bottle it would mellow nicely, given the chance.

The real reason behind its existence is to serve as a mixer with Maltings: adding a generous glug into your pint brings that lovely dark fruit complexity to the session beer, even as it renders it rather less sessionable.

So that's Sullivan's. It is, to all appearances, a well-funded highly-motivated operation with a strong brand and a definite sense of what it wants to be. I'll leave my eyebrow thoroughly raised over the "Est'd 1702" part of the strapline, and indeed the claim to be "Kilkenny's Brewery". I've little doubt that a full brewery set-up will come to pass in due course, though it may not be the city's only brewer by then. Meanwhile, Maltings can be found on tap around Kilkenny and beyond, and also at the Irish Craft Beer Festival at the RDS today and tomorrow.

Master blasta

I have to confess that my weakness for multi-lingual puns is behind my choosing An Brainblásta for this month's Session. It's not a new beer, having been part of the original Porterhouse line-up from nigh-on twelve years ago. I'm no stranger to it either, but I've never mentioned it here, partly because I haven't tasted it in the years I've been writing this. Today's barley wine theme prompted me to go back for a reappraisal.

These days, Brainblásta is Ireland's only regularly-produced barley wine. Until a few years ago Diageo made something branded a barley wine under their Smithwick's marque. I never got to try it, but at only 5.5% ABV one has to question how barleywine-ish it really was. Back in the mid-1990s, when I was working as The Worst Barman In Dublin, our pub's stock of Smithwick's Barley Wine was consumed exclusively by one very elderly gentleman who would buy one bottle per week on a Saturday evening on his way home from Mass. This, I suspect, was representative of the beer's main demographic and isn't a terribly sustainable economic model.

It was the year I worked in that pub that The Porter House microbrewery opened its doors in Temple Bar (it later became The Porterhouse and moved the brewery out of town). The connotations in English of the name Brainblásta reflect how shocking a 7% ABV beer was to a country where beers of 5% or more were almost unknown. As part of the marketing gimmickry, the pub made a big deal about only selling Brainblásta by the half pint. This policy didn't last, though there seems to be an effort to revive it judging from this image (right) on the pub's web site (though despite this I was served a pint of it, having asked for "A Brainblásta". I'm not complaining). Nevertheless, judging from the media, the government, and the lumpen commentariat there's little enough evidence of much maturity in Ireland's beer drinking habits, and yet here we have a very strong, cheap beer on sale in Temple Bar for over a decade without civilisation breaking down completely. Civilisation outside of Temple Bar, I mean.

An braon blasta is Irish for "the tasty drop". Does this beer live up to its punnage? I think it does. It starts out with a powerful bitter punch which manages to avoid the harshness sometimes found in strong hoppy ales. It's followed immediately afterwards by a sweet candy caramel flavour which is similarly uncompromising yet delicious. Sipping Brainblásta -- bitter then sweet, bitter then sweet -- produces a taste sensation akin to eating a toffee apple from the inside out.

The trend among Ireland's handful of craft brewers is still for sessionable beers of 4.5% or under. The stronger stuff only shows up as special editions from the Porterhouse, Messrs Maguire and the Franciscan Well. It all makes me very glad that the novelty of Brainblásta shows no sign of abating, even after a dozen years.