Anyone been to Ireland recently and have any tips? Going in a few weeks and driving from Dublin>Portrush/Derry>Ballycastle (County Mayo)>Dingle>Dublin. I’d love to try some high quality cask beer, not sure how common that is. Any tips are appreciated!
It’s been a couple years since we were there. I did not find much cask ale. The most common craft beer was Galway Bay Brewing, which has a few pubs of its own in Dublin as well as Galway.
Galway Bay is pretty much it. Otherwise get ready for Guinness brews, fresh and delicious.
I hear the Guinness we buy here in the states is not the same as the Guinness you would get in Ireland. Is that true and what are the differences?
I believe it is more a matter of freshness than not being the same beer. Everything I drank in the UK was so much fresher and brighter tasting than the same brands in the US that it is easy to think they were different beers.
Same thing with Belgium. After spending time there I came home convinced that unless you drink Belgian beer in situ you don’t really understand what it is.
There is plenty of “craft” beer in Ireland and the general standard seemed pretty high. Lots of good beer. It’s true, though, that cask isn’t so prevalent. Go to the UK for that. Of course, Guinness is an exception. A couple suggestions off the top of my head:
Dublin:
Gravediggers is often cited by the Irish themselves as serving the best Guinness in Ireland. Besides that, it’s just a fantastic pub. It’s next to a bigcemetery where many famous revolutionaries are buried. Not exactly in the center, but that’s not a bad thing.
Rascals Brewing Co. - A modern brewpub brewing very good beer and making excellent pizza. They hosted Ireland’s version of Homebrew Con last fall. Also not in the center, but not far.
Dingle:
Check out the Dingle Distillery. We stayed in a decent airbnb almost next door. Also, we wished we would’ve spent more time on the peninsula. It’s amazing.
If you take the tour of the Guinness brewery you get some free tastes at the end. When I was there they had about 8 varieties, but we only get one of them in the US.
Update:
Dingle-Dick Mack’s is a great brewery/bar to stop at. The brewery is technically separate from the bar (run by different people, but it’s right behind it). Didn’t have a chance to see the brewery, but they have some pics at their site below. The pub is the classic irish pub-half a dozen small rooms with comfortable furniture. The beer was pretty good, they had a nice coffee stout, red ale, and IPA (West Coast). Their pale ale fell a bit short, it was a little vegetal. They also had a huge selection of Irish whiskey, especially the nearby Dingle Distillery.
Dingle Distillery was a great stop. They offer a tour for $15 euros (~$17 USD), which includes a full pour of either their vodka or gin and a whiskey. I had the batch 3, finished in bourbon and port barrels. Some nice vanilla and some nice chewy/toffee/dark fruit flavor. The gin and vodka both start as wheat based neutral grain spirits (NGS) from Germany, and are distilled one more time on site. The gin is a nice London style, chill filtered. The whiskey is made completely on site, mashed and fermented in giant wood foeders. No temp control apart from “Open lid to cool” or “Close lid to heat”, but it’s fairly chilly there.
Pubs typically had Carlsberg and Guinness products (Guinness, Citra IPA, and Hophouse Lager). 5 Lamps in Dublin makes a nice Czech lager (located just south of St. Stephens Green area). Kinnegar Rye IPA was ok, if a bit sediment-y. Finnadork had a nice bourbon barrel aged brown ale. Craft beer you typically can buy from grocery stores for ~2.50-3.75 euros per bottle. Smaller stores have mostly Guinness products and Jameson/Bushmills/Powers for whiskey.
I was in Ireland (Irishland) almost exactly a year ago. Great time and experience. Galway BAY Brewing is excellent, Galway Brewing is not.
We drank a lot of Guinness Draught and its good, but it wasn’t until I got into southern Ireland that we could find Murphy’s and it proved to be much better. The other thing that you should seek out is Guinness Extra Stout since it did seem to be different (better) than what we can get in the states.
I enjoyed a bunch of cities in Ireland. Kinsale, Galway, Dingle were highpoints. I see the pictures of the Dingle Distillery above and now I wish I had stopped in there. We had no fixed itinerary and just made it up as we went. A truly great time.
I was in Ireland a few years ago. We spent most of our time in Galway and took day trips from there. We really enjoyed it there and wish we would have spent more time in Dingle. We only had one night there. I remember trying several different beers but none of them stick out. I just remember how good Guinness was there.
the guinness in europe is way better than what we get here. Last I heard, there were 11 recipes of guinness globally. I personally think what we get is very watery. I remember back in 95 I was celebrating new years in amsterdam and came across 4 irishmen at a pub. at some point I told them I could drink them all under the table… we spent the rest of the night buying each other rounds and having a blast. no one fell over and I held my own. ‘you’re quite an impressive yank!’ was said at one point. boy was I hung over the next day! good times…
That’s a great story!
I also think Guinness Stout tastes watered down. In fact, maybe my taste buds have changed, but Guinness Stout today tastes even more watered down than the same beer just 10 years ago. In fact, i remember getting a Guinness Stout in a bottle that had some sort of ball within the bottle that created the head as if the beer was drawn through a nitrogen faucet. What happened to that beer?
The Guinness in Ireland is now rubbish. I don’t know what they have done to it but it is awful in 99% of the pubs you will go into, north and south of the boarder. Even the pubs that were well known for serving good G are now serving thin, super cold and overly tangy G. Murphy’s and Beamish are far better. Also worth noting, Murphy’s in a can with a widget is very close to the draught version. If you boys in the States can buy it, you should check it out. Provided it isn’t BUL, of course.
I’d be interested to hear how @Wilbur got on whilst over here. He would struggle to find cask ale. Some pubs in the cities might do it but I have no idea which ones, except from the Wetherspoons pubs.
As far as ‘craft ale’ goes, Ireland has a fair amount of new breweries that have jumped on the bandwagon recently. But, in fairness, most of them produce shite beer. All very generic stuff like dry stout, lager, red ale and, for some unknown reason, IPA’s that they refuse to make over 5% ABV. Only 3 or 4 breweries stand out as making good beer, IMO. They are:
Kinnegar - Donegal
Galway Bay - Galway
Jack Cody - Louth
Boundary - Belfast