Category: Brown Paper Bag Project

#Brewsweplate, 2014, Aidan Sweeney, Brown Paper Bag Project, Eric Heilig, Food, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Junos, Premier Beers

#Brewsweplate – Beer & Food 5 Course Meal – Featuring Brown Paper Bag Project

by irishbeersnobLeave a Comment on #Brewsweplate – Beer & Food 5 Course Meal – Featuring Brown Paper Bag Project

You may have seen a lot of retweeting by me in recent weeks shouting out about the recent #Brewsweplate event. This was the second such event ran by Eric Heilig and Floriane Loup where each course is cooked to match the beers. My post about the last event is here

The beers this time were supplied by the Brown Paper Bag Project, a nomadic brewer that has spawned from one of the finest gastro pubs in the country, L Mulligan Grocer in Stoneybatter. Their brewer Brian was there to describe each beer with each course.

The ante was upped this time, both in terms of price and matched beers. 5 vs 4 on the last outing. The venue was meant to be the wonderful Powerscourt Centre, but there was a last minute change to Juno’s cafe on Parkgate St Dublin 8. The price, €65. A dining room with an open kitchen, and the place full to the rafters we were in for a treat.

The Menu
The Amuse Bouche

First up was the amuse bouche, mackerel with butter milk and caviar. A tasty little morsel. 

The Duck Course

Here we have a Duck Faggot with Kale, Pomegranate Seeds, Potato and onion seed, matched to the Big Red beer. Faggots are a traditional English dish cooked usually with low cost cuts, here we had moist succulent duck that was excellently seasoned.  

The Goat Cheese Course

Next up we had the lovely St Tola Goat’s Cheese course, with pear and sourdough. Matched to the excitingly refreshing Gose.  I’m a bit of a cheese phobe, slowly coming around to it, and this was my first time eating this cheese. It was lovely and creamy with a bit of sharpness that was complimented excellently by the beer.

The Beef Course

Now the piece de la resistance, FX Buckley dry aged beef, flat iron steak if i recall correctly, and slow braised beef cheek with dillisk, barley, root textures, and a smoked oyster foam. Our matching beer was the Pleasant Porter. The steak portion was perfectly cooked, vibrant pink, and the cheek, literally just melted in your mouth. The oyster foam added a savoury note that was amplified by the pleasant porter. A knock dish, and one I would order if it were available anywhere.

Not One, but two deserts!

The final courses were deserts, both matched to different beers. On the left we have a Passionfruit puree with white chocolate, topped with coriander and sea salt. Matched to the Trinity a belgian beer the coriander matched perfectly and salt gave a lovely lip curling tartness to the desert. On the right we have Tonca, Cocoa, Alexander’s seeds, blackberry and lemon. Firstly, i’ve no idea what tonca is, or who alexander is, but this was a mighty tasty desert. Fresh berries and crunch from the pink wafer worked beautifully. However this was the only course where I personally felt the matching beer was a miss. 

All in all, we had a great night, yet again. Sat at a table with great people, looked after all night and thoroughly enjoyable meal. Eric & Floriane, what a night, I can’t wait to see what you come up with next, and you know i’ll be there. 

Brown Paper Bag beers are now available nationwide in all good off licences, and bars. They are distributed by Premier Beers and if you can find the Gose, get that. Also the Big Red is lovely. I must buy some more to do testing of my own.





Brown Paper Bag Project, Cask, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Irish, Little Talks, Purity Ale, WJ Kavanagh

Little Talks – National Home Brewing Club

by irishbeersnobLeave a Comment on Little Talks – National Home Brewing Club

Ok, so i’ve been meaning to get up to the Little Talks at WJ Kavanaghs (www.wjkavanaghs.com /@WJKavanaghs) for a while now. The idea is basically they get a person in from a food/drink area to have a talk with people who are interested in that particular area.

This week it was the turn of the National Homebrew Club (www.nationalhomebrewclub.com / @HomeBrewClubIRL) who were doing a live demo of homebrewing. Both an All Grain Brew, and a Kit Brew.

Firstly, the location, WJ Kavanaghs, I can not believe up til now i’d not been here before. This place is amazing. A very wide range of craft beer on draft, but also 5 Casks on the go. What a range. As we’d eaten in Bobo’s earlier we weren’t going to be eating here, but the menu looked really good. Its no wonder this establishment is known for its food as well as its drink menu.

We settled in with a couple of Purity Ale Golds, a lovely cask session ale, at only 3.9% was very drinkable. 

So Padraic and Declan from the National Homebrew Club got the very decent crowd to order and kicked off.  As I said above the idea was they were going to go through an All Grain Brew, and Kit Brew. From the get go Declan made it clear this was going to be an interactive session, ask as many questions as you wanted, and come up and have a gander at the kit in action. Declan was ably assisted by Padraic and James. Who both explained the processes involved. It was a kind of a bit like the old L’Oreal slogan, “Here comes the science bit” thankfully, after each “bit” it was simplified into Laymans language. 

What did I pick up from it, well essentially Kit Brewing is like making a cup of tea essentially, according to Declan anyway, i’m sure i’d find some way to stuff it up. And all grain is where you can take your skills, and develop your own recipes. Or even attempt to imitate well known beers. 

What I found very encouraging was the community feel of the event, I suppose that is natural when you’ve a common interest, but there was a genuine feeling to me anyway that if you wanted to get into home brewing, that this was a forum where you’d be welcome to ask questions, and learn from people who have more experience. Everyone was very welcoming I must say, and I am really looking forward to getting stuck in. 

I am also looking forward to coming back in five weeks to sample the goods! 

Littletalks though is a great idea, here is a link here that shows what they’ve had recently, and what they’ve got coming up.  

I’m particularly looking forward to next weeks one, a beer sommelier will be there, Phil Tavey, hopefully i’ll be able to make it. 

While there I also had a pint of Oxman, from the Brown Paper Bag Project. Cask conditioned, and this was the last cask of this limited edition run. It was a lovely brown ale. It was very very tasty, i’m going to have to pick up some bottles of this before its gone.

As for Kavanaghs, which is ran by the good people behind L Mulligan Grocer in Stoneybatter, i was very impressed, i’m very much looking forward to going back and having a few beers with some very tasty looking food. Thank you for your hospitality.