 |
| Pictures courtesy of @mountainmancork |
Ok, so I’ve got a few more to tell you about
I am going to start with the lads from Mountain Man Brewing from West Cork, it was great to be able to chat to Phil on the Thursday when it was relatively quiet. Lovely guy, but what really impressed me is the branding – its really out there. They came to the fest with the Green Bullet, and the new Hairy Goat IPA. I was really keen to try the Hairy Goat, and it was delicious. The pictures are above, they used an Antler for a beer handle! And also a picture of the manic crowd from Saturday.
Also there were Dungarvan Brewing with a casked version of their lovely Black Rock Stout with oak chips. Needless to say it was spectacular. Along with a number of other festival specials, I also was very impressed with the session DIPA, hopped powerfully with a very sessionable 3.9% ABV. Yet another good showing from the team.
I was also happy to see my favourite cider there, Stonewell from Kinsale, it was also great to meet Daniel and chat with him. Hot off winning 3 Star Awards from at the Great Taste awards. Congratulations again, well deserved. It was also an opportunity to try it on Draft. It was one very refreshing pint of cider and was very impressed. Not much notable difference from the bottles.
O’Haras, were one of the organisers of the event, however i’ve had a lot of their products, and was trying to try things i’ve never had before, their barley wine was impressive and potent, but I preferred Porterhouse Louder. Early on Saturday I had a pint of their Helles Lager and i’ve had it before, but it was the perfect quencher. Though not my favourite lager of the festival. I was however also very impressed though with “Belgian Connection” which was a collaboration with JW Sweetmans.
Its always going to be difficult to try everything – and also very damaging to your liver and wallet if you even tried. But I was more than happy with what I got to try. But more importantly it was great to meet the fantastic people behind the products. They were all more than willing to chat to you.
There were a few minor quibbles with the event itself, but not enough to stop me wanting to go back. I’ll probably cover these off on a later post, but I would be interested to hear any visitors thoughts
Irish Beer Snob 