Middleton DistilleryAnyone who has been homebrewing for any length of time will know of the American Homebrew Magazine: Brew Your Own (BYO). It has been going since 1995, when I was still in school. They had arranged a trip to...
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| Middleton Distillery |
Then, Covid hit and the trip was postponed until the end of August this year. I was only too happy to provide my services. BYO usually get Zephyr Adventures in Colorado to organise their trips and Zephyr used to run the European Beer Bloggers conferences. I myself helped organise the Dublin conference in 2014 which is why they asked me to be involved. Aaron was the group leader for Zephyr and I was the local guide and backup driver along with Brad from BYO and 6 tour guests. We all squeezed into a VW 9 seater van, luggage and all.
They also keep their Method and Madness micro distillery here and that's part of the tour. We don't actually get to see the full size distillery as that's always in operation.
Our next destination was Limerick where we checked into the hotel and headed to dinner at a pub/restaurant on the Shannon. We then headed to Crew Brewing, a new brewpub that opened up around the corner from Mother Mac's during the pandemic.
It didn't hurt that I had plenty of holidays to take from last year so it wouldn't interfere with any other holiday plans I had.
We kicked off in Dublin on Friday afternoon where I led them on a brief walking tour of Dublin before heading to the obligatory Guinness Storehouse and then Open Gate Brewery before going to Porterhouse Temple Bar for a wonderful dinner and drinks. There was an interesting debate over which stout was best: Plain Porter, Stout (formerly Oyster) or XXXX (Wrasslers). I of course ordered a Wrasslers and a Yippy IPA and let my Wrasslers warm up before drinking it. The one complaint about PH bars is their stouts are always too cold for my liking,
The next morning, we hit the road and headed to Kilkenny. They were booked in to the castle and then they had time for a brief walk around the city. the market was on so I had the best Mexican tacos I can recall. We had a beer tasting at Sullivan's in their amazing beer garden complete with individual sheds.
Technically this was a Brewery/Distillery and Hiking tour so we next headed to the Comeragh mountains for a short hike up to Mahon Falls before heading to Waterford. Originally we were to do a longer hike but time was against us to make it to our next stop.
Next stop was Metalman in Waterford city where Tim took time out of his day off to show us around the brewery and treat us all to some amazing Metalman beer.
That night we ate at The Reg where we enjoyed Metalman by the pint before retiring to the hotel. I had eaten there a few weeks beforehand, outside when it was balmy and still very warm after dark. We headed back to the hotel through the old streets by way of Tully's who unfortunately had already taken last orders. This was a common theme of the restricted opening times, last orders were usually around 10:30 to 10:45 because kicking out time was 11:30 on the dot. Thank you Covid!
On Sunday morning, we headed to Middleton to visit the massive Middleton Distillery where Irish Distillers make their wonderful range of whiskeys.
Anyway, that picture up above is of me filling a bottle of cask strength Black Barrel edition Jameson for myself. I mean, the ticket gave me €5 off any purchase so I'd have been mad not to right?
After a hike at nearby Ballycotton along the cliff walk, we headed to Cork city for the evening. We ate at Market Lane drinking Elbow Lane beer from next door. Unfortunately Elbow Lane itself was too small for our group of 9 but at least they still had the beer. Then later, we visited Rising Son's for a few beers before heading back to the guesthouse.
On Monday, we headed to Blarney castle, that was their "hiking" part of the tour that day. They kissed the sanitised Blarney Stone and explored the beautiful grounds. The two people who came with me got my "local knowledge" of such delights as The Witches Kitchen, Dolmen and The Fairy Glen which no one else was able to find.
After that, it was west again to 9 White Deer brewery in Ballyvourney. While I've had the beer many times and have known Gordon for years, I'd never seen this brewery, only his original home setup in his garage years ago before he went pro.
From an organisation point of view, this was different. Gordon himself has been a long time reader of the magazine and when he saw the trip being advertised in the magazine, begged them to come visit him at the brewery. So this was the one stop we didn't need to arrange ourselves.
The next stop was Killarney where I dropped them off at Ross Castle to board a boat which would take them to the far side of the lake. They would then hike the Gap of Dunloe. I had a few hours to kill so I went to the hotel and checked everyone in and dropped their luggage to their rooms. I don't envy the job of a room porter, those bags were heavy and I needed two runs with the luggage cart.
I then picked up some ice to chill two growlers of my own homebrew because there had to be some homebrew on the trip somewhere. Since Covid made meeting other homebrewers a challenge, this was the best I could do. So I met them up near the gap and we had refreshments while being eaten alive by a swarm of midges.
That evening, we had dinner at a local restaurant along with some bottles of Killarney Brewing beer. The original plan was the brewery itself but it was unable to open that evening for food and drink so an alternative had to be found.
The next day (Tuesday) we headed off to the Dingle peninsula. Our hike was the three peaks of Annascaul, a charming village known for Tom Crean and also a former annual beer festival which I unfortunately never got to visit.
The Three Peaks walk is only about a 7km loop but it has a few challenging points. The view at the top is worth it, as is the welcome breeze. Just a note, depending on which way you go, you can either head up past the back of the church for an easier start but steep descent or in the opposite direction for a challenging, steep ascent and leisurely descent. We picked the easier option.
Next, we headed to the lovely Tig Bhric pub to see the compact little brewery, West Kerry Brewing. This was a real highlight of the tip because the brewing style used here is unlike anything they are familiar with. It's really homebrew on a larger scale but the partial open fermentation, which is a very English style threw them and they worried about infection etc.
When we were brought into the pub to taste the beers, Daniel (head brewer above) served us samples of everything available and they were blown away by how clean the beers were. A few of us purchased their new Gruit and glass pack which was prominently displayed on the bar counter. I look forward to trying that.
Afterwards, we headed to Dingle itself for a spot of lunch and some tourist shopping, though I took one couple to Dick Mack's brewery to tick off another brewery. I had them stick their head in the former milking shed to take a look before they ordered beers in the beer garden.
Next, we headed up to the lookout area of the Conor Pass to sample some Dingle whiskey. We were originally to visit the distillery but it hasn't re-opened yet as they took the opportunity during Covid to do some works. The view's better up here anyway. As designated driver, I'd have to wait until later that evening to try some. I hadn't had Batch 5 yet which appears to be similar to the new standard release except it was also finished in Madeira along with PX and Bourbon casks.
I absolutely loved this place and the beer was all exceptional too. There was also a great buzz about the place both indoors and outside. Being a weekday evening, it was starting to get quiet which suited our group.
Some are Galway Bay branded beers and then others are Tom's own Land and Labour brand of wild fermented beers, including the above Crimson which is a kriek framboise blend that was brand new and would only be leaving the brewery the next day. That means we got the first samples the day before release, what an honour. To say we were impressed with the beer is an understatement. That reminds me, I need to find some bottles to purchase before they are out of stock everywhere. *Note, just ordered some from The Beer Club as they had stock.
Since this was a completely new brewery to me, I of course ordered a sample of everything. One thing to note, they don't do a traditional sample tray so it's a half pint of everything. Since they had 5 of their own beers on tap, that's a 2 and a half pint commitment. Hey, I'd been driving all day so I was committed! And I wasn't driving the next morning either. Next, those of us willing to stay up a little longer headed to Mother Mac's for a pint.
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| This photo is from Brad at BYO |
The next day, we headed to The Cliffs of Moher for our walking portion. It was 10am and there were very few people there at that time on a Wednesday morning. It was also the calmest I've ever seen them. The Atlantic was almost mirror calm and there wasn't a puff of wind. By the time we got back to the car, bus loads of people had arrived and the cliffs were getting busier on the walk back so we were glad we had come out earlier.
The Burren Brewery was our next stop where Peter entertained us for a couple of hours of pretty much non stop stories. The man is fascinating and while I've met him a couple of times before, I've never met him in a group where he had a captive audience. To say he was in his element is an understatement. We had the tasting in their attached Burren Storehouse venue, they should just stick Peter on that stage and let him tell his life story. I feel we didn't quite hear it all. A few of us bought t-shirts to help support them in any way we can. The beer of course is amazing, I was only there a few weeks beforehand.
Next stop was Galway for a visit to the Galway Bay Brewery. The outside is like many Irish breweries in industrial areas, unassuming and not very obvious what it is. I suspect that's on purpose, don't want to advertise to the natives when you don't actually open to the public.
When I said to Tom that I hadn't been to this version of the brewery, he reminded me that no one has. They only moved in at the end of 2019 and then the pandemic hit so they haven't really had a visiting group until now. Thankfully the brewery was in full production so we got to see things happening such as line cleaning and so on.
The brewery is on another level when it comes to scale and it was by far the biggest brewery we had visited on the whole trip. We won't count Guinness as they didn't see the brewery itself and this is many times the size of Open Gate. In Irish terms, this is a big brewery. It's not a patch on the likes of Sierra Nevada and other large craft breweries in the US but it was still an impressive operation.
It was also by far the cleanest brewery we had visited. Everything was spotless, except the oak barrels of course. When we arrived, Tom was busy cleaning the floor for us as they had been cleaning out fermenters before we arrived.
We got to try some of the beer direct from the tanks before moving on to cans of brewery fresh Galway Bay Beer. We took some beer around the brewery to see the whole operation. It was especially impressive seeing all the barrels of wood ageing beer cornered away. At first you look at the wall of barrels and think that's pretty cool but then we go to other rooms and find more barrels and then even more rooms.
On a sidenote, a few weeks before I was in Galway eating at Aniar restaurant and they had Tom's Screaming Trees Nordic ale in bottle. When I tweeted it, he hadn't even been aware they were stocking it. Aniar is one of Ireland's best Michelin star restaurants so it speaks highly that they chose to serve it. It's certainly a beer for food pairing.
As always with a tour like this, time was always against us. I'd have loved to have taken them to the Galway Hooker brewery which is pretty much around the corner but there was only time for one brewery visit.
That was it for that day really, we had dinner at Dela restaurant that night (next to Aniar) which was absolutely wonderful. We then had our last drinks at Bierhaus before retiring to the hotel for the night.
The next day (day 7) was just a stop off at Kilbeggan distillery where I took over driving to allow Aaron enjoy the whiskey samples, all of which I've had many times.
Then I dropped people to the airport or their hotels and that was it, trip over and job done and since it was only Thursday afternoon, I could enjoy a long weekend catching up on lost sleep.
Thanks to all of the very accommodating breweries for hosting us, despite not usually being open to the public. And thanks to BYO and Zephyr Adventures for thinking of Ireland to do a trip.
Thanks to all of the very accommodating breweries for hosting us, despite not usually being open to the public. And thanks to BYO and Zephyr Adventures for thinking of Ireland to do a trip.
Also a big thanks to the group that stuck with it and didn't allow the trip to be cancelled. I believe we should have had twice the number but half had to cancel when it was pushed back by a year.
For anyone reading this that would like to have a similar type of experience, there's an experienced tour company in Ireland that specialises in brewery and distillery tours called Brewery Hops so I recommend contacting them now that Ireland has opened up for business again to international travel. I'm sure after the pandemic shutdown, they would appreciate the business.