A Quart of Ale± #6 Moving on over to craft. 4 good ones here: Kinnegar. White Gypsy. To Øl. Sam Smith.

A Quart of Ale± #6

Moving on over to craft.

Lagers are a joy to drink but tough to brew. According to the Brewdog book, Craft Beer for the People, there are four sub-styles: Lager (like the four reviewed below), Kölsch, Vienna Lager, and Saison. Lager is often the gateway for moving from mainstream to craft and this is Part 2 (See P1 here). We've a good quarter below, including two organic offerings. Next time, we'll be on Pale Ale, with eight examples - have you a suggestion? Then American style pale ale, next India Pale Ale (English style), American style IPA, British Golden Ale, Red Ale, Stout/Porter and on and on. Suggestions welcome!

He wasn't always a craft drinker!

Kinnegar Donegal Lager 4.5%, 440ml can, Bradley’s of Cork

So now, for Part 2 of this journey, we move onto the first of our modern lagers. With Kinnegar Brewing on the label, be prepared to be impressed.

And I was, both prepared, and impressed. No need to leave the island for your lager fix. With all due respect to the long traditions of the continent, the Donegal Lager is a champion. From a beer style point of view, DL is a light Helles. It's made with classic German hops in the traditional style.

It is refreshing as the best lagers should be and packs quite a flavour hit as well. Slightly less alcohol than the two continentals but the extra flavour more than makes up for that. 

They say: DL is a classic lager - light refreshing and crushable. And in this case proudly independent and proudly from Donegal. Always keep a few in your fridge.

Libby from Kinnegar: “We’re delighted with how it's being received. It's intended as a high quality but very accessible lager. We've always felt that Limeburner sits comfortably on a lager-loving pallet but the truth is that Limeburner has a tad too much flavour/character for some people. DL should suit everybody who's looking for a traditional lager and is prepared to take a chance on a small independent Irish brewery. We hope in time to see plenty of it pouring on draught, particularly in Donegal, but for now it's working well in its can.”

And if you buy this lager you’ll be helping a very good cause indeed, with a fixed amount from each batch going to the Donegal Hospice. Libby says they hope to continue the scheme “at least until the end of the summer and hopefully for a lot longer”.

White Gypsy Munich Lager, 5.8%, 500ml bootle, Bradleys of Cork

A bit more amber in the colour of this White Gypsy Munich Lager, thanks more than likely to the Weyermann Barke Pilsner malt. The head is not very large but does stay around for the duration, more or less. Plenty of bubbles too in the light haze.

Took a sip as I jotted down the first of the notes above and I immediately stopped “typing”, the better to savour this arresting Gypsy beauty. It has all the refreshment you’d expect from a lager but superb flavour as well and, yes, an excellent balance which keeps it in the easy-drinking category.

The label indicates that the hops used are Hallertau and Tettnanger plus a lager yeast. As well as maturation in cold storage, most lagers are also distinguished by the use of Saccharomyces pastorianus yeast, a "bottom-fermenting" yeast that also ferments at relatively cold temperatures. 

It is also a much slower process than top fermenting ales and ties up your equipment for longer, so not too many micro-breweries are inclined to produce a lager, particularly in their early years. White Gypsy are well beyond that stage now with a portfolio of distinguished beers to their credit.

To Øl 45 Days Organic Pilsner 4.7%, 44cl can, Bradley's Cork

Fountains of bubbles race up through the pale gold (very slight haze) of this pilsner. Nice soft head too and it stays there for quite a while. And what a pilsner. Superbly fresh and clean as promised, well-flavoured too and absolutely refreshing, reaching deep. 

The slower the fermentation, the better a pilsner tastes, they say, and the proof is on any palate lucky enough to be been washed in this Danish beauty. Not sure I’ve tasted anything better in this style. Crisp, complex and golden - do watch out for it!

Lager is always the slow-coach in the brewery but this one, the fourth product in their new Core Range, is an authentic German Pilsner, lagered for 45 days at -1 degree Celsius. It is also organic and the malts used are Organic Chit, Organic Golden Light and Organic Pilsner.

Samuel Smith’s Organic Lager 5.0%, 550ml bottle, Bradley’s Cork

Nice gold colour and no shortage of bubbles, maybe not as many as in the Danish one. Head neither as large or as fluffy but seems intent on hanging around for a spell. Slightly floral aromas. Good bite on this one, a bit more mouthfeel, and a little extra by way of the malt.

Serve this at 7 degrees is the advice. And take your time - after all you have an extra 50ml! And the label also tells us that the IBU is 25.

They say: Brewed with great care using only organic malted barley, organic hops,  medium-sot water, and a bottom-fermenting yeast; matured at low temperatures to bring out its delicate flavour and soft hop-character finish. The cold maturation allows the bottom-ferment yeasts to secondary ferment and improve the lager’s flavour, purity and condition.

The English brewery, Yorkshire’s oldest, has a few food pairing hints for you: trout amadine; salmon (fresh and smoked); all white fish; roast chicken (hot or cold); hors d’oeuvres; quiche Lorraine and salad.

A Quart of Ale± #5. Moving on over to craft with lager.

A Quart of Ale± #5

Moving on over to craft. Via Lager

Lagers are a joy to drink but tough to brew. According to the Brewdog book, Craft Beer for the People, there are four sub-styles: Lager (like the four reviewed below), Kölsch, Vienna Lager, and Saison.

Perhaps the first lager, I ever drank was Carling Black Label.  If I remember rightly, in the early-mid 60s, you’d pay one shilling and four pence for a bottle, about the same price as a packet of ten cigarettes. You’d have a pretty good night out for one pound (apparently about 20 euro in today’s terms - looks like the 60s weren’t too bad after all).

Year by year, with TV advertising hitting increasingly strongly, with the likes of Carling’s Mabel and Harp’s Sally O’Brien, we were drinking mostly “big” beer, big bad beer such as horrible Harp and Tennents. There were various ales too, including Watneys and its dimpled pint glass. 

On and on it went but bit by bit, I wanted something else (I was happy enough with the stouts available), and just gradually got fed up of one lager after another, hopping back to the first one for a few weeks, then onto another one and so on..

At some point, I stumbled across some German and Czech beers, mostly in bottle but do remember getting Staropramen on draught in the Woodford (Cork) or maybe the Paul Street bar was called something else then. Staropramen and other Czechs such as the Bud below were creeping in here and there and you could eventually get a selection in bottle and on draught in the Bierhaus.

And around the same time along came Franciscan Well and the new wave of craft beers. Lager was no longer a priority as we were eased into a whole new world of flavour via Blarney Blonde and Rebel Red, a brave new world and, eventually, new modern lagers as well. 

We’ll get to the newer ones soon but, for old times’ sake, we’ll start with a Czech and a German that helped me on my way.

Budejovicky Budvar Original Czech Lager 5.0%, 50cl bottle, Bradley’s of Cork

Budejovicky Budvar is the last of the state-owned breweries in the Czech Republic. Budvar is a beer for light beer lovers. High quality top-quality Saaz hops, pure clean natural water from 300-metre deep artesian wells and carefully selected grains of a unique cultivar of Moravian barley “make the premium lager a drink for real beer experts”.

It’s a pale amber colour in the glass with constant fountains of bubbles rising to the top. Head is soft and white and retention is decent enough and the aromas are mildly hoppy. 

Very refreshing drink with some mild bitterness and, for many, a big step away from mass-produced lagers. Another Czech lager I’d have been trying at the time was Staropramen (now owned by Moulton Coors). 

Budejovicky is quite a superb lager, the original Bud, and there’s been many a court case about the name between the small Czech and huge US brewery. Interestingly, the German name of the Czech town of Budějovice is Budweiser. 

What you need to know and probably do is that the American version is a copy of the Czech beer and a dumbed down copy at that according to this article. You can check it out for yourself in a head to head. For me though, my order would be two pints of Budějovice and none of the other. Score: 2-0. At least!

Weihenstephaner Original Helles 5.1%, 0.5l bottle, Bradley’s of Cork

A light amber, even lighter than the Bud, and less bubbles also. White head doesn’t hang about. Delicate aromas but strong and clean on the palate. Another refreshing drink from the oldest still existing brewery in the world. The IBU figure, not given on all beers, is a modest 21. They also do a non-alcoholic version.

Again, like many of the continental beers, the brewery comes up with a food pairing. Here they recommended Rump steak with marinade and give you the recipe as well. Check it out here.

Almost a thousand years ago the Bavarian State Brewery Weihenstephan was the monastery brewery of the Benedictine monks. Then, the Royal Bavarian State Brewery stepped in and it is now operating as a state directed enterprise under the control of the Bavarian Government.

The White Hag RÓC Helles Style Lager, 4.5%, 440ml can, Bradleys of Cork

Enjoyed this one, a lager of the modern kind, a few weeks ago. Light gold, slightly hazy, is the colour, a host of bubbles rising. The big fluffy head is rather short-lived. Aromas are restrained, just a subtle hint of the hops. Very pleasant in the mouth, easy drinking and well balanced to the lip-smacking finish. Light and refreshing they say. Light and refreshing it is. A flavoursome thirst-quencher indeed. IBU is 22.

The Helles style originated in Bavaria (Germany) apparently and this characterful example is one of the best Irish efforts that I’ve tasted. You’ll also see beers designated as Munich lagers, more or less the same thing as Munich is the capital of Bavaria.

Elbow Lane “Elbow” Lager, 4.4%, 500ml bottle, Bradleys of Cork

Once Covid19 struck, we had to go into the “cocoon”. So who would deliver food to us? Along came Neighbourfood, much to our relief and to that of many small producers and market traders who supplied it. My first order included a few beers from local Cork brewer Elbow Lane and very impressive they were, particularly the Pale Ale and the IPA.

And now to the lager, probably closer to the Czech and German versions than any of the others. The micro-brewery, in a small space above the Elbow Lane Smokehouse, brews according to the principles of German purity and “we formulated the beers specifically to work with the food we (the Market Lane group) offer in our five restaurants.”

All the beers are named after medieval lanes in the city, the lager after Elbow Lane itself. It is a mid-gold colour with a modest head, a head that has more staying power than most. The very modest aromas reveal little. There is a surprising tartness as it hits the palate - remember they are gearing this towards dining in their restaurants - and you can see that this lager, quite a distinctive drink, will score well with lighter dishes, including Asian. We certainly enjoyed it, on draught, with Pan Fried Monkfish on a pre-Covid visit to Goldies.

They say: This continental style lager is particularly refreshing and owes its flavour to Pilsner and Munich malts and Noble hop varieties imported from Germany and the Czech republic.

Taste of the Week. Vienna Lager by Elbow Lane.

Taste of the Week

Elbow Lane Meeting House, Vienna Lager 5.4%, Bradley’s of North Main Street

Elbow Lane may have “breached” the German Beer Purity law here but when that extra ingredient is love, well it is easy to forgive! And this Vienna Lager, a collaborative effort with the famed Bradley’s of North Main Street, is a winner, copper in colour, rich in flavour, well balanced and with a pleasant smoothness all through. It is a seasonal offering, brewed for the festival on the horizon. You may need to move quickly to get your hands on some as it is a "very limited" edition.

Not only does the love come from Cork. Some freshly picked hop flowers from Elbow Lane's garden were added to the German Perle and Herzbrucker hops and the Munich and Vienna malt.

Three men are credited on the label: Michael Creedon of Bradley’s, Russell Garet the Elbow Lane brewer, and David Dempsey who came up with the name (after a lane near Bradley’s). I like the bottle too and its long neck. Now better head on down town and get some more of our Taste of the Week.

Happy New Beer! Mayfield’s Cotton Ball. Ireland’s Latest Micro Brewery

Happy New Beer!

Mayfield’s Cotton Ball. Ireland’s Latest Micro Brewery

Forward planning. Jack Lynch in the Cotton Ball Brewery.

Months of research and hard work paid off this week when Ireland’s newest craft beers began to flow at the Cotton Ball Brewery in Mayfield.  The Cotton Ball pub, under which the brewery is built, was the venue for an early tasting of Lynch’s Lager, called after the family that founded the pub back in 1874.

While touring the new facility yesterday with Jack Lynch, I was shown a number of barrels previously used by Jack Daniels (and to be used in the future for a Lynch special brew). At least one of the barrels, Number 59, is stamped with the name of the American distillery and the address is Lynchburg, Tennessee, and that is one of the places where Jack Lynch’s grandfather, Humphrey, worked while in the United States in the 19^th century. And it is Jack's son, Humphrey, who is the Cotton Ball brewer.

A lot of lager here!

More beers are planned but, for now, there are just two, a Lynch Lager and a Lynch Stout, and these are exclusively available at the bar and at a very good price, I might add! My first venture was a pint of the lager. It is superb, full of great flavour and with a good cut in the finish. 

Christmas Stout

The Stout (left) is also excellent, flavour, smoothness and a long dry finish the striking characteristics. You get the hints of your old toffee bar in the aromas and on the palate and the flavours last, still a pleasure well after the swallow. Both beers are available on draught at the bar but you can expect to see them in bottles sometime in 2014.

Aside from the special, an Ale is planned for the New Year and should make an appearance as the Spring kicks in. And there are also plans to increase the food element at the Cotton Ball and indeed produce specially matched bites for the beers.

This barrell has quite an aroma, all the way from Lynchburg to Lynch's!

The brewery will be officially launched on January 25^th (6.00pm to 9.00pm) when you may try the new pints, enjoy the music and the new food menu.

Just to go back to Humphrey and his working trip to America. One of the souvenirs he brought back was a full size Stars and Stripes with 39 stars on it. This is an oddity as there were never 39 states in the union. The legend in the photo says the flag manufacturers took a gamble thinking that the Dakotas would be admitted as one state but instead North and South Dakota simultaneously joined the union as two separate states, taking the numbers from 38 to 40.

The 39 star flag

The flag is displayed in one of the loveliest corners of the Mayfield pub, a corner that Jack says will now be called the Brewery Room and one that will contain quite a lot of Brewing memorabilia in the months ahead. 

Must say I am looking forward to visiting on a regularly basis to keep an eye on what Jack and his sons Eoin and Humphrey are bringing up from underneath. It is no great hardship to me. The walk is short and the beer is good. Happy New Beer!

The "Brewery" room, just one of many cosy sections in the Cotton Ball

Lynch’s Stout

Hand crafted from 5 malts and traditional flaked barley. Bittered moderately with American and New Zealand hops. Late kettle hopped with premium Kentish aroma hops beer. Warm matured on the same aromatic hops, after which the beer is cold matured on Jack Daniels impregnated American oak.

The result

A phenomenal marriage of coffee roast, caramel, lush, balanced by a clean bitterness exploding into a tangerine, mandarin aromatic delivery with the faintest hint of oak.

Lynch’s Lager

Pilsner lager made with 100% Cork malted barley ,is clean Bittered with Columbus and galena U.S.A grown hops. Late kettle addition of hallertãu perle and hersbruker, fermented with our rapidly settling yeast strain. With a proven record of making clean cut pilsner lagers portraying the individual hop aromas from New Zealand to Norway and the east and west of Europe.

The result

Another unchallengeable quality lager delivering, subtle aromatic hop flavour and aroma from a bed of light malt caramel flavour with a thirst cutting clean bitterness.

Cotton Ball details:

18 Old Youghal Road, Mayfield

Cork Ireland

Phone  (021) 450 3096

Hours: 

Mon - Thu: 10:30 am - 11:30 pm

Fri - Sat: 10:30 am - 12:30 am

Sun: 12:30 pm - 11:00 pm

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Tom Crean Dining Experience at Annie’s

Tom Crean Dining Experience at Annie’s

Saturday night, at 18.35, we sat down to enjoy the Tom Crean Fresh Lager multi-course dinner in Annie’s Gastro-Pub. Why 18.35? Annascaul man Crean took part in 3 of the 4 Antarctic Expeditions and during the Terra Nova Expedition he undertook a superhuman 18hr 35 mile solo trek to save the life of his two companions.

The meal was also quite a voyage of discovery but a very pleasant one indeed as the kitchen team at Annie’s   came up with a string of class dishes, all incorporating the excellent lager made by the Dingle Brewing Company. The crew out front also did a marvellous job with only a couple of minutes between efficiently and courteously delivering a course to first and last client in the packed venue. It was the second night of the event and Friday went very well also.

Crean’s can be described as a fresh, clean, refreshing golden lager with a slight sweet taste. The soft flavours, slightly sweet aftertaste and rich golden colour combine to give you a thoroughly enjoyable drinking experience. I’d be very happy to see it in my local. The brewers also boast that it goes well with food and that was well and truly confirmed in Annie’s.

Started off with a pint and then came the first dish: Pan fried fillet of Mackerel on Crean's Brown Bread. We were up and running with this brilliant tasty match. Then came the mussels and langoustines with smoked bacon and leeks in a Crean’s Broth. Creamy and delicious.

And the standard remained very high as the Risotto was served, Wild Mushroom and Roast Chestnut with a Cream Thyme Reduction. We were being spoilt now for sure.

For me, one of the best dishes of the evening followed: Crean’s Confit Roast Pork Belly, Parsnip Puree, Kale and Crean’s Jus.  This was a brilliant combination of textures and flavours.

And the inventive chefs weren’t finished yet. Up came another star plateful: Crean’s Braised Beef Cheek, Celeriac and Potato Rosti, Roast Beetroot and Chive Emulsion. So tender, so tasty.

Then we had the sweet finish, their take on Ile Flotante with Chilled Blueberry Anglaise and Crean’s Hazelnut Caramel. Sweet and cool. A class finish to a class meal. And still time for some music and another pint of that fresh lager!

The chefs at Annie's enjoy some well deserved lager.
From left - Mark Ahern, Chris Starr and Head Chef Micheál "Tiffin" Griffin