Big Trouble Comin’ Every Day.

Kildare is proving to be a hotbed of microbrewery growth. Rye River, Kelly’s Mountain, Kildare Brewing Co., Two Sisters & Trouble Brewing. Trouble Brewing has been a stalwart of the craft beer scene in Ireland for seven years, with favourites such as ‘Deception’, ‘Dark Arts’, & ‘Sabotage’. But Trouble Brewing in 2017 is a very different animal beer wise & under its third revolution with former Bo Bristle brewer Dave Guilfoyle taking over the reins from Mark Nixon, who left to head up brewing at Hope. The third act of a story is typically meant to be the high point, & with the beers coming from their Kill facility today, Trouble are showing no sign of let-up.

The FreshDroneHoboBox Reviews

Double IPA’s are probably my favorite beer style. The first one I ever had was Stone Brewing’s Ruination. It’s a beer that despite it’s change has remained a firm love of mine. One of my biggest gripes in our market for a number of years has been the lack of Double IPA’s I can put hands to & the ones that did exist were in the most part to me, very uninteresting. But that was then, this is now & we have a choice of Double IPA’s that makes this hopped up sonuvabitch … well, a happy sonuvabitch. I recently say down to crack into four of the latest ones to hit our market & give them a try.

Beer ratings? We need to talk.

Beer ratings. Whether it’s RateBeer, Untappd, BeerAdvocate or the ratings given by beer journos or bloggers/podcasters, Beer Ratings I think today are now due a proper discussion. A come-to-jesus-meeting type discussion.

My 20 most important #craftbeers

I was recently reading a blogpost by a long standing follower of mine going way back to my podcast days, Myles Lambert which was titled ’20 Most Important Craft Beers…. on my journey.’ Over 2,000 different beers later, it got me thinking hard about my own journey through craft beer which really only started in 2001 despite growing up in a house where homebrewing was done regularily. And these when I think about it, are the 20 craft beers that even today are firm favorites that have influenced my tastes even now.

Bumps in the road for BrewDog Dublin?

Just when it looked like everyone’s favorite (depending on where you stand) brewpunks were closing in on the long awaited & much anticipated Dublin bar, it would seem the Ellon-anarchists have hit another bump in the road on their plans for Dublin.

Irish Craft Beer: A New Hope.

With the new bill to allow craft breweries & distillers to sell their own produce on-site without acquiring a bar license a mere handful of bureaucratic footsteps away, & in sight breweries like Hope Beer in Kilbarrick in Howth, County Dublin are excited & already in the process of putting together their taproom to complete theirpiece of the puzzle like so many other craft brewers in Ireland. So, I took this opportunity to take a visit to see Hope’s brewery, check out the taproom & catch up with my old drinking buddy, their headbrewer Mark Nixon.

Hazy murkbeers? I’m so over it already.

Murkbombs. Pint o’Murk. New England IPA. NEIPA. Murkbier. Cloudybeer. Whatever you wanna call it, New England style IPA’s are popping up everywhere. If you’re a brewer, you want a piece of the sales action on this style right now. And if you are already as a brewer, kudos to you. It’s good for business. But, I’m just not down with the haze-craze. I was over it before it even began.

When a New England inspired IPA is just bottled lies.

There is absolutely nothing worse as a beer drinker than the promises made on a label or blurb on a brewer’s website of what a beer is, only to open it & discover you’ve been had. New England IPA’s are the current IPA beer trend of the moment, so when O’Hara’s Brewery from Carlow released one called ’51st State’ that was inspired by the New England IPA style  (great name choice), I was eager to give it a try. Oh eagerness, how you mock me.

A New Hope for a New Summer.

Ever since one Mark Nixon left Trouble Brewing to head out Howth Way to take over the brewhouse at young brewery, Hope Beer, the man has been relentless in his creation of special beers. As someone who has followed this young man’s progress very closely, & seen him become one of the elite group of young head brewers in Ireland who are at the vanguard of Irish craft beer. And experiencing the creations from these young, hungry brewers has been a priviledge, as has picking their brains. As Summer 2017 starts creeping way, Hope have staked a claim to ‘beer of the Summer’. And they’re one hand on the flag with it.

We all live in a yellow … belly?

One of the great things about being a beer enthusiast is how easy it is to visit independent micro breweries at your leisure on your own country. It’s a heck of alot easier than wine afficianados, who unless they live in a wine producing country, they’ve a fair amount of travel. There are many reasons I like visiting breweries, & believe it or not, tasting beers for me is actually not anywhere near the top of the reasons on my list. Meeting/catching up with the people at breweries is the single best part of those reasons to visit for me. On a miserable day in the usually sunny south east, I took a trip to Wexico City to visit Yellowbelly.