Meath, the Royal County as it is affectionately known the world over. Home of such historical sites such as The Hill of Tara, Newgrange, and The Battle of the Boyne site. But something is stirring. The craft beer revolution that is booming along in Dublin is slowly reaching out to its neighbouring county.
Like anything progress can seem initially slow, but once we have the spark i’d expect to see it lift off like a rocket. In Navan the main town in Meath the pub at the forefront at the moment is The Central. A multifloored, multiroomed bar located on Trimgate Street. They offer a wide food offering and have regular events such as a monthly comedy night and other events. However it was the craft beer tasting that piqued my interest. The team at the Central are loyal to local producers and use them as much as possible.
Having met Paddy and Daire of Bru Brewery recently at the ICBCF in the RDS Dublin and subsequently got to know the lads a bit better and thoroughly enjoying their beers, particularly the Rua. I was going down to see how they’d got on since their successful launch in the RDS, where up with Amber Ella the Rua was one of the most talked about Beers of the Festival. Also in attendance was John from Premier Beers, who was going through the tasting on a range of the bottled craft on offer in the Central.
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€10 was the cost per head, but this included samples of the three Bru Brewery beers, and samples of the range from premier which included Thwaites, Donegal Blonde, and Moorhouses beers. More on those later.
But debuting on the night was the Bru Lager, which poured in my opinion a lovely amber colour very similar to Brooklyn lager, however from talking to Paddy the next batch will more than likely be lighter on the colour scale as customers were double checking they’d ordered a lager. The flavour was very nice, and very quaffable, ABV of 4.2%. We were sat with a few total novices, and I must say the feedback I could hear on the three beers was all very positive. I know Paddy & Daire have had a couple of teething issues, but this is to be expected. The quality of the product stands up to scrutiny well. If the lads continue on this vain i’m sure it won’t be long before more local publicans will be looking to get on board.
John talked us through the offerings from Premier. Premier are renowned for importing all sorts from world wide, but they have started to do Donegal Blonde and I believer its flying out. Personally its a middle of the road for me, but I’d say it does well as its not too powerful one direction or the other. The stuff from Thwaites, from Yorkshire UK was good. The very successful Wainwright was very quaffable, but the IPA was a bit of a let down. Biggest surprise of the night for me was the Black Cat from Moorhouses, a sub 4% dark ruby ale, it comes in at 3.4% but was full of flavour, coffee notes.
There was a good crowd in sampling on the night and the little sausage sliders with charcuterie and cheese were lovely – hopefully the lads continue to push Bru as its only made down the road, literally, only 8 miles away. I’ll introduce myself to the lads there formally when they are less busy. Also in my Beoir capacity i’ve to give them their “Irish Craft Beer on Sale Here” sticker.
This is part 1 of my review of the week gone by. I’ll be putting up more later about what else i got up to
Irish Beer Snob 