Beer Nut: Latest report from Ireland

The eye-catching tap lines at Fidelity, a craft beer pub in Dublin.

Ireland’s craft beer scene has grown immensely since I first wrote about it in 2003.

Yes, I’m back on the Emerald Isle once again, and because I know plenty of readers in Massachusetts either have roots there and or love/want to travel there, I’ll use this week’s column to provide some new craft beer discoveries I made on this trip.

It was unusually hot (for Ireland) during this trip. That means it sometimes hit 75F, which might seem mild to Bay Staters, but coupled with Ireland’s constantly high humidity, it became fairly oppressive to someone like me. But it seems petty to complain about the sun being out here; I only mention it to say why I’m kicking off this column with my main first beer choice while I was here: Galway Bay Brewing’s Slow Lives Helles Lager (at the Salt House in Galway).

Galway Bay Brewing makes such a wide array of beers, that it’s hard to stick to just one, but my first week in Galway City was so hot and sunny, that I found it even more difficult to switch to anything else. This Helles is a stunning thirst-slaker, and except for two or three bottles of Galway Hooker Irish Pale Ale at my favorite Galway eatery, Quay Street Kitchen (and some Guinness pints at the legendary Tig Coili with my superb Airbnb host, Daniel), I barely drank anything else for the first week.

Slow Lives is a Munich-style lager employing German Pilsner malt, Saaz hops, and Galway water. It’s as crisp as you want it to be with a nice bready underpinning. It finishes clean and leaves you wanting a second or third. At 4.5% ABV, it’s a perfect session brew.

Of course I did eventually try another Galway Bay beer, the amazingly tasty I Hear You Like IPA. This is a small-batch “cold IPA” release that uses cold-fermenting lager yeast to create a more crisp focus for the tropical hops. It’s brewed with pilsner malt and rice and fermented with a blend of house lager and ale yeasts, with simcoe, columbus and strata hops doing double-duty as the brew is both wet-hopped and dry-hopped with all three varieties.

Of course, later in the week, I visited my friend and beer maven John Stephens in Dublin. After a quick visit to The Long Hall (in honor of Phil Lynott, who shot part of his “Old Town” video there), John got us on the tram, and we headed to the North Side, where we enjoyed several brews at Fidelity, a sleek bar featuring mostly Whiplash Brewing beers.

The place was visually stunning, but the beers were even better. The weather wasn’t any cooler in Dublin, so I started out with a Whiplash Blue Ghosts Pilsner, a crisp lager with touches of citrus around the edges. I then decided to escalate my approach and went for a double IPA collaboration between Whiplash and Track Brewing from Manchester, England. Named Future Dust, this brew comes in at 8.2% and features a relatively new (2020) hop variety, New Zealand Nectaron. These hops bring some pineapple punch to the forefront – a nice change of pace from the usual citrus notes often featured in IPAs.

John and I stepped up our game even further with a U.S. imperial stout, Dark Apparition from Jackie O’s Pub of Ohio. This delicious concoction brought together a blend of cocoa and dark fruit flavors, with plum taking the lead. The alcohol was slightly noticeable in the taste, but not intrusive.

But this was definitely a sipping beer that always should be the last drink of the night. And so it was.

Sláinte.

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