Pieter Declerq – a journalist, chef, photographer and blogger at Hot Cuisine de Pierre – invited us to deliver an Irish beer tasting at his house in Diest on 13 September.

The participants were a mix of family and friends, and self-proclaimed beer geeks.

IRISH BEER TASTING | IRELAND AS A BREWING NATION

‘Know your audience’ is an important rule when speaking to groups and there can surely be no more intimidating beer audience than Belgians.

I introduced Ireland’s recent beer awakening through a quote:

Irish people love drinking. But I wouldn’t say they love beer. Elisa Depypere, 2014.

Things are changing very fast. According to statistics from Beer Ireland and Beoir, there were 23 breweries in Ireland in 2012. This year, in 2014, there are in the region of 60.

Among those 60 or so, there are, of course, some who stick to the ‘holy trinity’ of lagers, red ales and stouts. But there are some who are producing great beers and attitudes are slowly changing.

DAN KELLY’S CIDER | BOYNE GROVE ORCHARDS (4.5% ABV)

The first beer of the evening wasn’t even a beer. It was a cider.

I chose it to start because cider has always been more popular in Ireland than it is in Belgium. It’s not a drink with which many of those attending would be particularly familiar.

Dan Kelly’s cider is produced by Boyne Grove Orchards, a family farm based in Drogheda. Olan McNeese heads up the operation of 200 acres which includes the farming of beans and winter wheat and 80 acres of apples. “Our farm manager has seen four generations of our family work on this farm,” says Olan. “My grandfather, father, myself and my son.”

The cider itself is named after Olan’s great grandfather, Dan Kelly, a Belfast man who worked as a steam train driver on the Dublin to Belfast railway line. That railway line, now the Enterprise service, passes through the orchard where Olan and his family grow their apples today.

It was a great way to kick the tasting off, a pale cloudy opener with a big apple aroma, medium dry taste and a lovely carbonation profile of lively prickly bubbles.

All of the apples that end up in the cider are handpicked and left to ferment naturally using wild yeasts. The process happens slowly through the cool months of autumn and winter in tanks which sit outside letting nature do its work.

Some discussion followed on the process of spontaneous fermentation, comparisons being drawn to the lambic and geuze beer styles of the Pajottenland and Senne Valley.

Some participants asked about consistency, given the wild nature of fermentation. Olan himself acknowledges that this is a huge consideration production: “One of the deciding factors to use wild yeasts was to avoid the use of sulphites and yeast aids,” says Olan. “I have trialed ciders with cultured yeasts and have seen the predictability advantage of that. I just feel that we get something slightly more interesting and we avoid sulphites. There is a risk inherent in this process, and we couldn’t have known how it would pan out but just decided that we would see how it went.”

The taste profile of the cider is boosted after this period of wild fermentation when Olan and his family blend the cider. They add some sweet apple juice from a variety of dessert apples and a tiny bit of water (less than 4%) to dilute the alcohol slightly to a sessionable 4.5% ABV, to balance everything and to lift the flavour profile of the cider to medium dry.

The participants at the Irish beer tasting also wondered whether, given the spontaneous fermentation, the cider would continue to mature in the bottle as it was stored. The cider is filtered and force carbonated before undergoing a process of pasteurising which kills any living bacteria and yeasts in the cider.

GØSE | BROWN PAPER BAG PROJECT/FANØ BRYGHUS (5.8% ABV)

The second offering was something a bit different: a collaboration by Irish gypsy brewers, the Brown Paper Bag Project and a Danish brewery, Fanø Bryghus. The beer was brewed in honour of an almost extinct German beer style.

The Brown Paper Bag Project is a group of guys who work in a famous Dublin pub, L. Mulligan Grocer. They are gypsy brewers; they don’t have their own brewery but instead brew beer in other breweries.

In this case, they teamed up with the Fanø Bryghus brewery situated on the Danish island of Fanø.

Gøse is a style of beer which originated in Goslar, Germany. It is a top-fermented beer brewed with at least 50% of the grain bill being malted wheat. There is an inoculation by lactic acid bacteria after the boil giving it a sour character. They also add coriander to spice.

The natural brewing water of the region around Goslar contained a small proportion of salt due to the history of salt mining in the region. This salt flavour made its way into the beers. Under strict observance of the famous Reinheitsgebot, the German ‘purity of beer law’, this would normally have been illegal but gøse became accepted as a ‘regional specialty’.

In an attempt to replicate the natural brewing waters of the region, the Brown Paper Bag Project and Fanø Bryghus added sea salt to this brew: a mixture of Irish sea salt and Danish sea salt.

The Belgians asked about the name of the Brown Paper Bag Project. In Belgium, it is perfectly acceptable to drink alcohol, from bottles or glasses, in public spaces. Belgians can often be seen sitting along the Graslei in Ghent picnicking with bottles of wine, beer and jenever. Do the same thing in Ireland, however, and you’re liable for a hefty fine or worse. You’re better off sticking that bottle of whiskey or beer into a brown paper bag so that no one knows that it’s alcohol. No one would ever guess, right?

This beer was served with goat’s cheese. The sour citrus notes of the beer complement the acidic flavours in the cheese, its creamy texture putting manners on the gøse’s effervescence.

It pours hazy lemon with a large white head and aromas of apples, citrus and lemon zest. Its base taste was undoubtedly sour and the saltiness is present, but not aggressively so. It doesn’t sound appealing – sour and salty – but somehow, it works, and it gives a sparkling mouthfeel and dry tart finish.

AMBER ELLA | EIGHT DEGREES BREWING (5.8% ABV)

Next up was Amber Ella from Eight Degrees Brewing, another Irish brewery with an international twist.

Brewery founders, Cam Wallace and Scott Baigen are from Australia and New Zealand respectively, and having followed two women to Ireland where they now live in Mitchelstown, Co. Cork they set about opening a brewery.

Looking for inspiration, Cam and Scott turned to a map of the world, and saw that the line of longitude that runs down the middle of Ireland happens to be Eight Degrees West. The brewery had its name. They also joke that the name of the brewery reflects the perfect temperature at which to serve their beers.

The Amber Ella was launched at the Irish Craft Beer Festival in 2013, an American Amber Ale of 5.8% ABV. Its grain bill of Maris Otter, Dark Crystal and Torrified Wheat gives it a deep amber hue, and although the malt profile equips the beer with a stone fruit aroma and toffee caramel backbone, this beer is really all about the hop.

Hops used include Simcoe from the U.S. and Galaxy from Australia. But the undoubted star of the show is a high alpha Australian hop variety called ‘Ella’, after which the beer is named.

The original name of this hop when first cultivated in Victoria was ‘Stella’ but the growers were forced to change its name in July 2012 due to legal pressure from the Belgian beer brand Stella Artois.

Those present at the Irish beer tasting liked it; a cloudy, kind of muddy red pour with an apricot, tangerine and pine needle aroma. The taste? Bitter. Long lasting and deep throated bitter. They weren’t surprised that this beer had won a bronze medal at the World Beer Cup this year in the American Style Amber-Red Ale category.

The food pairing with Amber Ella needs to be strong enough to match the bitterness of the beer. Little cuts of spicy chorizo sausage do the trick with the grease cutting through the bitterness and the spice of the sausage sharing the back of the throat with the hops.

OF FOAM AND FURY | GALWAY BAY BREWERY (8.5% ABV)

Of Foam and Fury from Galway Bay Brewery was served up fourth and was the hit of the evening.

It’s an unfiltered, unfined and non-pasteurised Double IPA – essentially a strong or imperial American Style India Pale Ale. The style’s hallmarks are the use of pale and often caramel malts as well as highly aromatic new world hops with a big bitterness in taste.

It pours a cloudy amber colour with 8.5% ABV and is bursting with tropical fruit aromas of grapefruit, mango, passion fruit and blood orange with a touch of pine-wood. Its bitterness is balanced against the sweetness of the two-row barley malt and caramalt and the blood orange punch of the new world hops.

In the hop, this beer is a true powerhouse, with a large new-world influence in their choice of Galena, Chinook and Simcoe from the States and Pacific Jade from New Zealand. The beer is also dry hopped twice with large additions of Simcoe, which contributes to the huge aromas coming out of the beer.

Although this beer is much more bitter than the Amber Ella (Amber Ella has 67 IBUs and Of Foam and Fury 132 IBUs), the Belgians agreed that they would have guessed the opposite. This says as much about the profile of the Amber Ella with its long lasting back of the throat bitterness as it does about the balance of Of Foam and Fury, not to mention the meaninglessness of the international bittering units measurement.

At 23, Chris Treanor of Galway Bay Brewery is Ireland’s youngest Head Brewer.

What about the name of the beer? “Other than the nautical, I feel the name truly suits the image for the beer,” says Chris. “And funnily enough, it’s a powerful thing to ask for from across the bar. Almost ceremonial!”

This beer was paired with Irish Dromona Mature Cheddar, something sharp and full-flavoured to stand up to the big character of the beer.

The Belgians aren’t the only people to like ‘Of foam and fury’. Members of the Irish beer consumer group, Beoir, voted it the Beoir Beer of the Year in 2014. On Ratebeer, the famous beer rating website, Of Foam and Fury is currently the No.1 rated beer in Ireland. And if that wasn’t enough, it just last week won a silver medal at the World Beer Awards.

YANNARODDY COCONUT PORTER | KINNEGAR BREWING (4.8% ABV)

Moving now to darker beers for the Irish beer tasting, the Coconut Porter from Kinnegar Brewing, Yannaroddy was next up.

Perched against the backdrop of the North Atlantic coastline and the wild countryside of Rathmullan and its surrounds, Kinnegar Brewing is operated on a farmhouse in Co. Donegal by Rick LeVert and Libby Carton.

Although his family roots lie in Boston, Rick spent most of his early life in upstate New York, studying film at NYU. It was in the Big Apple that he met Libby 25 years ago. After the Berlin Wall came down they spent some time together in Germany in the 1990s. Libby was able to convince Rick to move back to the place where she grew up and the spot where the brewery is now based – near the Kinnegar strand in Rathmullan, Co. Donegal.

The Belgians were impressed with the beautifully designed bottle labels and brewery logo. Kinnegar is a derivation of ‘coinín’, the Irish word for ‘rabbit’ and the Kinnegar bay is famous for the rabbit warrens on the beach. ‘Hoppy’, a hare rather than a rabbit, excitedly makes his way across the labels. Libby is a professional graphic designer. Each beer is branded with its own colour and the beauty of the bottles is their simplicity.

“We wanted to keep everything very clean,” says brewer Rick about the design. “We want our beers to have a very clean crisp flavour. We want our appearance to be clean and crisp as well. We find that if you go into retail outlets, there’s an awful lot happening on the shelves. We specifically said, ‘let’s reduce the amount of detail’.”

Yannaroddy is the name of a field quite close to the brewery, a bastardisation of the Irish name of the field. The resulting anglicisation gives the field’s name a sense of exoticism and it was this hint at the tropical that inspired Rick and Libby to add an ingredient very unusual for a porter. “We dry hop it as well,” says Rick. “But in this case, we dry coconut it.”

The Belgians enjoyed the deep black colour, tan latte head and soft chocolate, hazelnut and coffee notes. However, they struggled to identify the presence of any coconut in either the aroma or the taste.

Perhaps palate fatigue was the reason. We had just tasted all the new world hop intensity of Amber Ella and Of Foam and Fury, but perhaps also the coconut in this beer is used more as an innovative fining agent rather than a major flavour additive.

“We don’t want people to get this big forward blast of coconut,” says Rick. “It’s intended as an extra layer of flavour that rounds off the character. What we want is a full roasted flavour coming off the roasted malts without the acridness and bitterness that you can get from that. And then we use the coconut to just round off those flavours. You will get a hint of coconut, but you won’t find that there’s a big wash of coconut.”

A milk chocolate and coconut food pairing – we used a Bounty – brings more out of the beer, and although it doesnn’t accentuate any coconut notes, it does match up perfectly with the darker nature of the malts.

FRANCISCAN WELL JAMESON STOUT (7.8% ABV)

To finish the night, we opted for something special in the form of the Franciscan Well Jameson Stout.

Stouts are inextricably linked to Ireland – not only because of the success of Guinness both internationally and at home – but also because of the more historical brewing tradition. But what other drink could be more associated with Ireland than whiskey?

The head brewer at Franciscan Well Brewery, Shane Long, is one of the most experienced brewers in Ireland and he has guided Franciscan Well from being a tiny brewery in Co. Cork to the point where 15 years after beginning, they were bought by Molson Coors UK & Ireland last year.

Many ‘craft beer purists’ argue that Franciscan Well can no longer be categorised as a ‘craft brewery’. For Shane, the acquisition was about increasing capacity and reaching a new group of consumers in the international market that Franciscan Wells would not have been able to reach on their own.

Essentially, this beer is an original stout – a style initially produced as a stronger or ‘stouter’ porter – brewed using Irish base malt and a small percentage of roasted barley. It is then matured in whiskey barrels in a process which takes four months from start to finish, involving temperature changes to enhance the blending of beer, whiskey and wood.

“The stout was our first beer with Jameson,” says Shane. “We worked closely with the Irish Distillers who helped us pick the correct barrels. As far as I’m aware, we are the only brewery to be lucky enough to get second fill barrels. Usually a brewery would have to wait until the end of life of a barrel, which reduces the character achievable.”

There were a few ‘aahs’ and ‘oohs’ upon production of this beer at the tasting. It comes in a beautiful case and classy bottle, one befitting of a gift of whiskey.

It pours pitch-black with a thin tan head and an aroma of chocolate, wood, treacle toffee and warming notes of whiskey. In the mouth, there were bittersweet, milk chocolate and roasted flavours and although relatively light-bodied there is a subtle bite from the whiskey on the finish.

The beer geeks present at this Irish beer tasting wanted the beer to have been aged longer to enhance that barrel-aged character. “We wanted a balanced beer with no one element taking over,” says Shane. “We didn’t want too much wood or too much whiskey.”



NOTES OF THANKS

Thanks to Pieter Declercq for asking me to deliver the Irish beer tasting and to all those who came along. Pieter wrote about and photographed the tasting and Kevin Desmet (a.k.a. Belgian Beer Geek) put together a blog post (in Flemish) on the event.

Thanks to the Irish bloggers who reached out and offered me their opinions on the beer and advice on a line-up: John Duffy of the Beer Nut; Reuben Gray of Tale of the Ale; Wayne Dunne of Irish Beer Snob; Ian Bergin of 11pm Somewhere; Steve Lamond of Beers I’ve Known; and Aidan Sweeney of Brews International.

The staff at McHugh’s Off-Licence in Dublin – Kevin, James and Aidan – were more than helpful when discussing beers with me and I’m grateful to Paul Fogarty of Probus Wines for offering me alternative options. Thanks also to Typerite in my hometown of Warrenpoint in Co. Down who safely shipped and delivered the beers from Ireland to Belgium and to everyone at BLES, the beer club in Zottegem (particularly David Le Roy and Sofie Van Ragfelghem) who were kind enough to lend me their tasting glasses for the evening.

Thanks also to the brewers, who were happy to chat to me about the beers for this Irish beer tasting.