Belfast Beer Festival

So another Belfast Beer and Cider Festival has been and gone.  For the 14^th year the Northern Irish public have been spoiled and lavished with over 100 beers and 20 ciders to choose from at the majestic Ulster Hall.  Three days of quality beer choice that you wouldn’t get anywhere else in Belfast.  And I include two of my favourite Belfast bars The Hudson and The Garrick in that statement.

Although the festival opened to the public on a Thursday the CAMRA NI team were hard at work from the previous Sunday assembling the bars and installing and plumbing casks.  A big thank you to all of them for their efforts.

Then the place opened and the fun really began.  Beer novices and self-appointed connoisseurs flocked in their droves - learning, criticising, deliberating and simply tasting what was on offer.  (I’ll tell you later about my quotes of the festival.)  From lagers and light IPAs to rich porters and strong stouts, something was on offer to suit all palettes.

Of course anyone who was there will have their own favourites and your choices will differ from mine but that’s what makes festivals interesting.  One man’s ‘meh’ could be another man’s ‘mmm’.  However this is my opinion so get over it! (Does that annoying American style finger/face gesture.)

My four winners were Ards Brewing’s brand new Bittles 366, Fyne’s Jarl, Metalman’s Chameleon Smokescreen and Otley’s Saison Obscura.  The Ards experimental  offering was a hoppy and fresh  4.8% ABV ale that you could easily enjoy any free Saturday afternoon with pint after pint.  Aaand maybe another.  Perhaps it was a combination of the public’s desire for light IPAs, seeing a local Ards pump label and with ‘A’ being one of the closest pumps to the entrance door, Bittles 366 was the first cask to finish at lunchtime on the Friday!

Also in the same fresh and hoppy category was the award winning Jarl from Argyll brewery Fyne.  With a citrus and grassy finish, Jarl boasts the Champion Beer of Scotland title along with claiming 3^rd place in CAMRA’s Great British Beer Festival in London last August.  At 3.8% ABV, it exudes quality and smoothness.  I loved it since first sampling it in Cork last summer and was very excited to see it at this year’s festival.  If you see it in any shops here in Northern Ireland, don’t think about it - buy it immediately.

Metalman Brewery is based in Waterford and had originally intended sending up their delicious Pale Ale as well as the dark Moonbeam.  However Moonbeam didn’t materialise but instead we were treated to the fantastic  4.5% ABV Chameleon Smokescreen.  Their Chameleon range is so called as it’s a ‘we’ve no idea what to expect, anything goes’ policy – trial brews come under this banner and boy did Smokescreen hit the top corner of the net.  As the title suggests, smokey and dark – a delicious porter that could rival any established porters already on the market.

My final choice of the festival comes from South Wales - the 5.5% ABV Saison Obscura from Pontypridd brewery Otley.  First to strike you about Otley are the funky and simplistic pump clips.  A basic ‘O’ design with black and one other colour is the norm for Otley beers .  Very nice.  The brew itself has a complex and intriguing underlying tongue of dark pepper and orange peel.  Definitely a winning winter ale and one to warm yer cockles after battling through the hoardes of psychotic weemin buying unwanted Christmas presents for wee Britney, Piers or whoever.

I also had the privilege this year to be one of the judges on the panel to select the Champion Beer of Belfast. Although the four beers named above were not in the shortlist of eight (was very disappointed with that), Brentwood Brewery's BBC2 emerged victorious by one point from Titanic's Cappuccino Stout. An amazing feat by Brentwood considering BBC2 had the lowest ABV of the festival at just 2.5%. Just goes to show that not all weak strength brews are tasteless.  BBC2 is a mid copper coloured ale with hints of caramel and citrus, a good session beer.

Before I go, three brilliant questions I was asked while working behind the bar -

3. What lagers do you have?

2. Do you have any Heineken?

1. Have you any beers?

FACEPALM!

Beer Place Names Part 4

It’s becoming more difficult you know.

In the autumn of 2012 I started a little quest to take as many photographs of locally produced bottles of beer.  Not just any old photos you understand but photos of a bottle in front of a road sign or placename that also bore the ale’s title.  Inishmacsaint beer on Inishmacsaint island in Fermanagh, Hilden’s Titanic Beer in front of the Titanic Museum etc.  In previous ramblings, I had collated twelve such photographs featuring Hilden, Ards Brewing Co, Whitewater, Inishmacsaint and Clanconnel.  They can be seen in earlier blogs on here and on the CAMRA NI website.

But there was always going to be a finite number of shots to take and I’d started to exhaust all local beers with a place name in the title.  However a couple more have been added to the list thanks to Ards Brewing and one of the new kids on the block, Sheelin Brewery. 

Based in the village of Bellanaleck just outside Enniskillen, the thatched roof Sheelin complex accommodates three businesses – brewery, tea room and lace museum.  Now I’m not much into the history of fabric but I am partial to a jam scone and even more interested in a flavoursome local beer.

So one August afternoon en route to County Mayo, Gillian and I called into Bellanaleck and were made to feel very welcome by owner and head brewer George Cathcart.

After the tea and scones were demolished in the tea room we had a whistle stop tour of his brewery before being handed a sample of the new fresh and light Sheelin Blonde Ale.  There’s one for the photo place names album I thought instantly.  Nice one.  

Ards Brewing Co is a microbrewery based outside Greyabbey on the Ards peninsula.  Established in 2011 and mentioned in my previous blogs they produce quality brews such as Pig Island pale ale, Ballyblack stout and Cardy Man stout.  Those three have already been photographed in front of Pig Island in Strangford Lough and Co. Down roadsigns for Ballyblack Rd and Cardy Road. 

A recent Ards brew was Bittles Citra Autumn Ale, exclusively available to Bittles Bar in Belfast.  This zesty 5.1% ABV beer has undertones of grapefruit and passion fruit and is highly quaffable.  If you haven’t grabbed one by now, chances are they’re already gone.  You can follow both Sheelin and Ards on facebook and twitter.

So I said at the start it’s becoming more difficult.  Further beer place name photo opportunities are few and far between now but if you have any ideas or thoughts of where I could go next, let me know here or on twitter @roywillighan

It's your round you say?

Cheers.