Fresh and Local at Bull McCabe’s

Fresh and Local at Bull McCabe’s

Fresh and local is the policy at Bull McCabe’s  on the Airport Road. Meat comes from Ballyburden Meats in Ballincollig, relishes from Christie’s Celtic Kitchen in Carrigaline and fruit and vegetables from Waterfall Farms.

And there is also a good choice of local drinks available. At lunch yesterday, I downed a cool pint of Friar Weisse from the Franciscan Well. Other choices available include Howling Gale Ale from Eight Degrees and Cider from Stonewell in Nohoval. And they have a different guest beer every month.

Let me just stick to the drink for a minute. Their whiskey comes from Midleton Distillery and Bull McCabe’s is a venue where you may enjoy a Jameson Reserve Tasting. It costs just €12.50 to do the tasting which includes a Whiskey Appreciation Guide and 25 mls each of Jameson Select Reserve and Jameson Special Reserve 12 year Old and, wait for it, 25mls of Jameson Gold Reserve.

The tasting is a feature of the regular Tuesday Ruaile Buaile Nights at the Bull where you have a three course meal, the tasting and entertainment for a grand total of €32.50. Sounds like fun.

The carvery lunch there is very good, lots of meat dishes and salads available, also sandwiches and wraps. A bit too hot for the soup so I went direct to the Roast Beef with all the trimmings (€12.90) while CL picked the Baked Salmon (11.70).  Two faultless plates, very enjoyable, especially the cooked to perfection vegetables (carrots and cabbage).

No shortage of homemade desserts available including Strawberry Roulade, Coffee and Walnut, and Apple Pie. My choice (two spoons, though) was the gorgeous Pear and Almond.

They also do a Tuesday lunchtime tenner special and yesterday’s offers, again with all the trimmings, were Roast Stuffed Turkey and Homemade Lasagne.

Owner Derek told me that their Evening Special (two courses for €17.50) is proving very popular. Here, you may have a main course with a starter or a main course with dessert. Other big draws on the evening menu are the Burger, the Chicken Fajita and the Chicken Curry. The Blackboard Specials are available Monday to Friday 5.00 to 9.00pm. Dinner is also served on Saturday, same times.

It is a busy spot. And a lively one. Lots of fun and events there. Not so long ago they had their Iron Man contest, one with a difference as the object was to find a guy who could best handle a clothes iron! Watch out for their Food and Beer Matching event, coming up, most likely in September.

Being close to the airport and to a few hotels in the area, Bull McCabe’s gets quite a lot of foreign visitors. Derek tells me that Irish beef is very highly regarded by them. He wasn't surprised at that but was slightly surprised to hear a group of Austrians declare that the Franciscan Well’s Friar Weisse was the best beer they had come across!

Great to see a bar/restaurant that supports local producers doing well. Long may it continue?

·         Bull MCCABES, AIRPORT RD, CORK

·         CARVERY LUNCH
MON-FRI 12:15-2:30PM, SAT-SUN 12:30-3:00PM

·         EVENING MEALS
MON-SAT 5-9PM

·         021 432 2142

Summer in Blairs County

Summer in Blairs County

Summer time finds us in Blairs County, dipping into some gorgeous salads and sipping ( maybe even gulping!) some terrific craft beer in the gardens of Blair’s Inn.

Don't know of any other restaurant where you get a Beer List as a separate offering from the Wine List. And they have some fantastic beers to choose from. A couple from Dungarvan Brew Company on cask, the hugely popular Howling Gale Pale Ale from Eight Degrees along with Friar Weisse (a favourite of mine) from Franciscan Well on draught and loads more in bottle.

Cashel Blue and Roasted Pears

Top beers in bottle include the tasty West Kerry Brewery Blonde Ale (known as Beal Ban) and don’t forgot you can also have the ace Stonewell cider (dry or medium dry) in bottle from the Nohoval Brewing Company.

And then there is a star studded line-up of imports, including a  couple by Brew Dog and Sierra Nevada from the US. There is a “jokey” presentation employed by the Belgians that make Brugse Zot Blonde Ale but the brewers aren’t clowning around and this 6 per-center is a serious gem and highly recommended. Really enjoyed that one.

Oh, I almost forgot. We did go there for the lunch. And we weren't disappointed on that score either. Those Oysterhaven mussels, neat and tasty, are delicious, especially with  that White Wine and Garlic Cream Sauce.

Copper Coast Ale
from the cask!

It was super hot in the Blair’s Inn kitchen and still the team came up with the goods. Absolutely thrilled with my mains: Warm Salad of Cashel Blue Cheese and Roasted Pears. CL took the cool route and she was impressed with the Cold Meat Platter of the Day (mainly chicken and O’Crualaoi’s corned beef) served with salad, pickle and their own gorgeous Chutney.

What better way to finish off this delightful summer lunch, eaten as the little river bubbled along at the end of the garden, than with a bowl of luscious strawberries!

Now stop clowning around with my Brugse Zot. Wonder if Mr Bradley has some of those in North Main Street!

Down and Dirty in the Cidery

Down and Dirty in the Cidery

2012 Apple Crop: the Elstar (normal size but scarce); Dabinett (plentiful enough but smaller than usual).

How do you know a real craft cider-maker?

Wait until September or October (or November, as I did) and check his hands. Has he got what looks like a false tan on the digits? If he has, that is the confirmation you need that he has handled tons of apples, the “tan” created by the tannins in the fruit.

And tannins weren’t the only link between cider and wine, as Stonewell’s Daniel Emerson explained to me in his base in Carrigaline this week. The press he uses is a wine press on hire from a French wine-maker who uses it for just two weeks each year whereas Stonewell use it for six months.

Stonewell have just moved much of the operation from the family home in nearby Nohoval. “The scale is very different here,” said Daniel as he surveyed his expensively assembled “production line”: the forklift, the wash tank, the mill, the maceration tank, the press and the four huge tanks where the cider is finished off.

New base for Daniel Emerson and his Stonewell cidery.

 It has been a year of progress for Daniel and Stonewell. “We sold more than we expected in 2012 and as a result our stocks of the 2011 are low.”

But it wasn’t the best of years for the apple crop of 2012, quite the reverse in fact. The eating apples (used mainly in the medium dry cider) blossomed abundantly in March only to be hammered by the frosts in April. That made them very scarce and expensive.

In the wash.

The bad summer led to a lack of pollination for the cider apples (varieties here are Michelin and Dabinett) and growth was slow. The supply is pretty good though and with the firm also securing a supply of Elstar eating apples, it is full steam ahead in Carrigaline.

There were some yellow Elstar in the system during my visit. They are first washed and then hand sorted before going through the mill and maceration stages. Next the mix, now known as a pomace, visits the presser where the juice is extracted and is then directed to the tanks.

 At the moment, Stonewell makes two types of cider: a medium dry and a dry. If the dry is too dry, they use apple juice rather than sugar to sweeten it. Both are for sale in many counties. Here is a list of stockists.



By the way, with the exception of the glass bottles, everything in a Stonewell cider is Irish – apples, labels, cartons, elbow grease, Atlantic sea air and all! “We don’t use any artificial sweeteners and we definitely don’t add any chemical additives to tweak the natural flavour of our cider.”

Considering the amazing impact the Nohoval cider has had in its short life, I was quite surprised to find such a small team sharing the workload: Daniel himself, his wife Geraldine, Ralph and Eamon, all dedicated to getting the very best out of those precious apples. The small Nohoval facility is not being abandoned and will be used to tweak the juices, both creative and fruit, to come up with a different cider. Watch this space.

For the third time in five days, it has been my privilege to meet people who are willing to take a chance on and in this country, to get down and get their hands dirty, to invest their time and money in giving us better food and better drink. Support them by buying local and buying Irish.

Stonewell Cider goes Dry!

Stonewell increases cider options


Thanks to a recent win in a Galvin Wines competition, I got the chance to compare the two ciders now on offer from Stonewell. Many of you will be familiar with the Medium Dry but now they’ve added a Dry.

Stonewell Cider, 2011 Medium Dry, 5%, Distributed by Galvin Wines


This, Stonewell's first, has slight amber colour, very slightly cloudy. Classed as Medium Dry, it is certainly dry enough for some palates, and I’ve been an admirer since the start.

Now, both it and the Dry version are made from five different types of apple, all locally sourced: Dabinett, Michelin, Falstaff, Jonagored and Elstar.
While it has made many friends in what are still early days, it is still not dry enough for some, hence the new cider in the yellow version of the bottle with the distinctive Celtic motif.

Been drinking some good Basque ciders over the past few weeks while on holidays in the area (SW France, NW Spain). The craft cider there, used quite a lot with food, is cloudier and noticeably drier than anything here. Didn’t come across any that was even close to medium dry!

Stonewell Cider, 2011 Dry, 5.5%, Distributed by Galvin Wines




The first thing you notice is that this new Stonewell is darker, more of the amber. And the instant it enters your mouth, you know this is a dry cider and a very pleasant one too. It is made from the same five apple varieties.

It gets an unanimous thumbs up from this mini-tasting yet each of the tasters agreed that he or she would not be saying “No!” to the medium dry. No doubt, as time goes on, each cider will have its devotees and occasions and quite often there will be a pleasurable overlap.

WELL FED AT BLAIRS INN

BLAIRS INN

All the hanging baskets and window boxes were catching the sun as I landed at Blairs Inn in Cloghroe yesterday for lunch.

Blairs bills itself as a traditional pub and restaurant and is popular with tourists and locals alike. It is regarded as one of the top gastro-pubs in the country and you’ll be well fed here.

Dishes in Blairs are quite substantial, so we skipped the starter and, while waiting for the mains, enjoyed a bottle of that splendid Stonewell cider (€5.50) from Nohoval. The Braised Shank of Lamb on a basil mash, served with a Redcurrant and Rosemary jus, arrived and looked good in the dish.

Then another dish arrived! With the vegetables: turnips, broccoli and carrots, all cooked to perfection. And that wasn't all as there was also some top notch baked potatoes (smooth roosters) there. Quantity for sure and quality also.

Took my time with that lot but there was zilch left on the main plate and that pleased our hosts no end. Service, with a  smile,  was excellent and courteous and no pressure to take dessert or coffee. Beyond me, in any case.

The bill, for two lamb and two cider, came to €46.90.

BLAIRS INN: A TOP SPOT

BLAIRS INN
Corned Beef and Cabbage. As a starter! Yes and it proved a really tasty beginning to an excellent weekend meal at Blairs Inn.

What a menu they have there. If you combine the pages from the bar and restaurant menus, I reckon you could be eating there for a year and still have combinations to explore.

And then there are the drinks. There is an excellent wine list, for sure. But also lots of local (and international) drinks including craft beers from Dungarvan, Carlow, Eight Degrees (North Cork) and the new cider sensation Stonewell by the Nohoval Brewing Company.

After a big welcome and a chat with Richard we sat down in the cosy restaurant – they also have a lovely garden dining area – to go through the menus.

My starter was a Warm Tian of O’Crualaoi’s Corned Beef and Cabbage with a creamy Parsley dressing (€7.70). If you get out there, you should really try this. The beef, supplied by the well known Ballincollig butcher, was spot-on as was everything else in this well presented cylinder shaped offering of good local food.

Then on to the main course: Pan fried fillets of Sea Bass on a Chorizo mash with a sundried tomato and rocket dressing and a side plate filled with vegetables and another with gratin potato, both done to perfection. Again, another excellent plateful.

And a big plateful. Indeed, both starter and mains were quite substantial, so much so that I had to forego the dessert.

They helpfully suggest, on the menu, various drinks with each course; the tips for me were a wheat beer with the starter and a dry cider with the fish. I was in the mood for wine and settled on a bottle of their highly recommended an excellent Hopler Gruner Veltliner (Burgenland, Austria) 2009 (€26.95).

You get a great welcome here and also help and advice. Quite a few tourists make their way here and they must be impressed with the local knowledge that the owners and staff so freely dispense.

Lovely food, lovely place and lovely people. A return visit is on the cards. And not just for me.

STONEWELL: IRISH CRAFT CIDER

Stonewell Medium Dry Irish Craft Cider, 5.5%, €3.99 for the 500 ml bottle.

During many trips to France over the years, a regular pleasure has been sampling their cider with a lunchtime salad. Now, at last, we have a local craft cider here and it is encouraging to see some Cork restaurants already adding it to their drinks list. Perhaps a smaller bottle size (maybe 250ml) might be more suitable for lunchtime!

Made from local fruit by the Nohoval Brewing Company, this is quite a refreshing drink. That fruit sure comes through well but there is enough acidity, just about, for the cider to merit its Medium Dry tag. It is close to being perfectly balanced.

It is early days yet in their admirable Nohoval venture and, already Daniel, the Master Cider Maker, has a product to be proud of. Good cutting in it, as they say. Now, all we need to go with it is a summer’s day!

Must say though that this cider doesn’t really need the sunshine to illustrate its quality which is orchards ahead of some of the bland insipid watery stuff being imported.

Loads of info on the label, including that one of the three Apple varieties used is Michelin, but if you haven’t brought your reading glasses, don't worry: you’ll know the country of origin by the eye catching Celtic design on the front.

Stonewell. Another good reason to buy local, buy Irish. I got mine in Bradley’s (North Main Street) and you can see the full list of stockists here.

PS: My first bottle was chilled down fast in the freezer while the second was treated to a more leisurely and less extreme cooling in the fridge. The second tasted better. Wonder what the recommended serving temperature is?