My NI Faves of 2016

In case you hadn't noticed, it's that time of year again.  Apart from continuing the strange ritual of putting trees in our living rooms and seeing plenty of overweight men in ill-fitting red polyester/velvet outfits, mid December means a review of our favourite Northern Irish beer of the past twelve months.  Of course I didn't have every single beer that was locally brewed this past year - though I did have a fair few - so this list isn't exhaustive.  It's also my opinion, yours will be different.  And that's good, so don't be gurning if your favourite isn't listed.

Best Porter -  KINNEGAR in collaboration with The Sunflower Pub - CAGE FIGHT

Celebrating the Belfast bar's independence from Diageo et al.  Although Kinnegar hails from Co Donegal, this has an NI influence as the bar staff helped in the brewing so it counts in this list.  Also available in keg but I preferred the bottle (yes I did have both to make a comparison).  A bitter chocolate start with the faintest of sour cherry but this is swept aside soon after with a lingering chilli heat that stays on the better side of tasty rather than overpowering. 

Best Stout - LACADA - UTOPIAN STOUT 

A cracker of a stout from the north coast co-operative, this appeared as part of Lacada's Limited Edition Salamander Series range.  Rich with hints of chocolate and coffee.  It's also available in cask sometimes if you're lucky - I prefer it in cask just marginally more but others prefer the bottle.  More on this later...

Best IPA - FARMAGEDDON - MOSAIC IPA 

This is also available in bottle form but it's a much better beast in cask, and I had the privilege of enjoying plenty of it in the Ulster Hall where it won overall beer of the Belfast Beer and Cider Festival.  Lots of smooth passion fruit and mango up front with a delicious bitterness that reminds you this is a beer, not a fruit juice.  Praise also for their Citra and Gorse IPAs earlier in the year.

Best Pale Ale - ARDS - HIP HOP 5

Ards Brewing Co from Greyabbey in County Down turned five years old this year (in 2011 Northern Ireland had 5 breweries compared to 30 today) and to mark the occasion, brewer Charles created - in my humble opinion - an improved version of his Hip Hop pale ale.  This one was brewed using five different hop varieties which made the beer a touch sweeter and more aromatic than the original.

Best Red - FARMAGEDDON/RENEGADE - RED EYE 

Collaborative brew between Farmageddon and English outfit Renegade Brewery.  Slight citrus fruits at the start give way to a great Columbus/Galaxy/Centennial hop bite with a slightly sweet biscuity malt remaining constant throughout. 

Best Amber - MOURNE MOUNTAINS - COAST 2 COAST

Mourne Mountains Brewery in Warrenpoint brewed this amber to celebrate the race event of the same name that starts in Co. Sligo and ends in the Mournes in Co. Down.  Tasty chewy hoppiness with a light caramel and butterscotch aftertaste.


Best Speciality - LACADA - IVY HONEY

Another one in the limited edition Salamander Series range, this was launched at the Belfast Craft Beer Festival at Custom House Square.  Shame it was in short supply as I found this to be an outstanding beer with the addition of ivy honey from brewer Laurie's own bees.  Could another one be on the horizon for 2017?

Best Irish But Not Northern Irish -  McGARGLES - FRANCIS' BIG BANGIN IPA

There have been so many great beers from across the border in the past year, coming from the likes of Galway Bay, Yellowbelly, White Hag, Brehon and Eight Degrees among others. But for me McGargles Big Bangin' IPA blew me out of the water.  Hoppy as you like with an aftertaste that oozes subtle citrus fruit - superb.

Overall Best Northern Irish Beer of 2016 - LACADA - UTOPIAN STOUT

If you're drinking this in the company of someone from Portrush and they turn to you and say "it's a wheeker, sham" then it's a good beer.  When I first had this in January I described its qualities as bitter, then sweet, then chocolate.  I've had it quite a few times since and still stand by those words.  A great stout from the Lacada co-op and deserves to be in its core range in future.

This is just a small cross section of the range of styles now available in Northern Ireland.  As well as the list above, expect saisons, sours, wheats, smoked oaks and many more.  And fair play to all the brewers brewing them.

Again I emphasise this blogpost details some of the best Northern Irish beers I had in 2016, there are plenty more.  Go find them!  

Review of 2013 and onwards...

So 2013 is almost at an end.  What did we witness in the past 12 months?  The birth of Prince George, the death of Thatcher and Mandela, a Pope resigned for the first time in 600 years, Fermanagh hosted the G8 summit, Derry-Londonderry was UK City of Culture, twerking became the news and One Direction still haven't split up.  

Also this year Northern Ireland saw a rise in the number of microbreweries.  Beezer, I hear you cry!  Ten craft and real ale breweries are now dotted across our land providing more choice than ever to the discerning drinker who is fed up with the usual bland and over-fizzy gubbins that can be bought in every bar in town.

A revolution is taking place friends.  Alongside so-called established brewers such as Hilden, Whitewater and Clanconnel (who produce the McGrath’s range), other budding business ventures are being started up with vigour and gusto.  This year alone has seen the introduction of Red Hand and Pokertree from Tyrone, Sheelin from Fermanagh as well as Farmageddon from Co. Down and Clear Sky.

I love the name Pokertree and details of where the name came from can be found on their website (www.pokertreebrewing.co.uk). Based in Carrickmore they produce a very tasty bottle-conditioned Ghrian Golden Ale (brewed with coriander seed and lemon peel) as well as the darker Red Earl Ruby Ale.


Twelve miles down the road, Simon and Ciaran at Red Hand Brewing hope to have a Red Hand Pale Ale available to the Donaghmore public by January with a hope of expanding their 100L brewery by the summer. Unfortunately that means folk from outside the village will just have to visit McCausland's pub or the award winning Brewer's House to sample their wares until then.

Sheelin from Bellanaleck in County Fermanagh is run by the very personable scientist and self-confessed yeast enthusiast Dr George Cathcart. He has a blonde ale and a stout currently on the market and hopes to brew a red ale and IPA in 2014. (I really loved the IPA when testing it last August - please make it happen George)

Clear Sky (currently contact-brewed by Hilden) produce the very appealing Fulcrum wheat bear and is available in a number of good pubs across Northern Ireland while Farmageddon’s early 2014 plan is to have three brews in their core range (gold, IPA and porter) as well as up to SIX specials.  Watch this space for exciting news from the Farm.

Other breweries established in the past couple of years such as Ards and Inishmacsaint continue to grow.  Gordy Fallis from Inishmacsaint has done well to promote the brand name over the past year (no doubt helped by featuring in the BBC NI programme ‘Farm Fixer’ with Lord Sugar’s trusted aide Nick Hewer.)   A new Inishmacsaint Lough Erne Brown Porter was first seen at the Belfast Beer Festival in November and we shall see in time if that proves as popular as his original production.  A farmhouse ale called Muck Savage has also just been released and further plans for that in 2014 are unsure.

Charles from Ards Brewing is currently building a bigger brewhouse so hopefully 2014 will see more of Pig Island, Ballyblack, Rockin’ Goose and Cardy Man.  You may also see something new from them using the fresh and light Citra hop. 

As I said earlier, a revolution is taking place.  Never before has there been such a choice of flavoursome, interesting, LOCAL brews. Where possible encourage your friends to sample a Hilden Twisted Hop or Whitewater Clotworthy Dobbin.  Visit more craft/real ale pubs.   The more that is sold by pubs who have the vision to sell these beers the more they will want to CONTINUE to sell.  The more they sell, the more these beers will be in demand and consequently brewed by the breweries mentioned above.  Who knows what the December 2014 blog will feature?  Hopefully I'll be writing that One Direction have split up by then.

I'll drink to that - cheers!

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.

Beer Place Names Part 2

So I said before that it started with Inishmacsaint.

Previously I told the story of how I developed a bit of a fascination with Inishmacsaint beer from Fermanagh.  I initially became engrossed with finding out about the name and history of Inishmacsaint island - and this developed into thinking about travelling there to have a photo taken with the beer bottle in front of the Inishmacsaint sign.  This quickly developed to other places in Northern Ireland that were closer to me (in Carrickfergus). Whitewater’s Belfast Lager and Clotworthy Dobbin (Antrim), Hilden’s Halt and Cathedral beer and Ards Brewing Co’s Ballyblack were all done and dusted with relative ease.  

However some others such as Ards Pig Island was another matter altogether.  The brewery is extremely small and production has been scaled down even more as the owner is in the process of building a bigger brewhouse. So imagine my surprise when I ventured into one of my favourite bars, Bittles in Belfast, and there in all its piggy glory were rows of Pig Island! Well you could have knocked me down with an “oink”.  Tasty too, a wonderfully refreshing pale ale with a background hint of orange marmalade.  If you ever have the good fortune to see Pig Island beer, give it a try.

With the bottle secured for future photographic fame all I had to do now was find the island - easier said than done. Sure it might be common knowledge to you if you live near Greyabbey on the Ards peninsula, but I’m a County Antrim man and (in a John Wayne accent) “I ain’t from around these parts boy”.

Tinterweb’s a wonderful thing though, a lot of time spent looking at OS references and Google maps led me to where I had to go and the snap was duly taken (complete with Monty Python-esque finger). Charles at the brewery got to hear of my little mission and also informed me of another of his occasional brews made with cardamom called Cardy Man. Quite a good play on the name I thought. And guess what, Cardy Road is in Greyabbey. Get in there, that’s another photo in the can – or should that be in the bottle.

Other pics in this article include Hilden Scullions at Scullion’s Road in Mallusk as well their Titanic beer outside the Titanic Visitor Centre.  The only problem with that taking that photo was the waiting and waiting…and more waiting for tourists to disappear so no-one would be in the shot!  I think I had a 5 second window to take the photo before another American appeared, waxing the usual lyrical about how their great aunt Sadie came from Cork.

So quite a wee collection of Northern Ireland beer place names are being built up –

ARDS BREWING: Pig Island / Ballyblack / Cardy Man;

HILDEN: Halt / Scullions / Titanic / Cathedral;

Whitewater: Clotworthy Dobbin / Belfast Lager;

COLLEGE GREEN: Belfast Blonde;

CLANCONNEL: Weaver’s Gold

Oh yeah, and I still haven’t been to Inishmacsaint!

Beer Place Names Part 1

It all started with Inishmacsaint. 

I’ve been a fan of the Fermanagh beer for a while now and wanted to know more about the Lough Erne island here in Northern Ireland which bears its name, the cross and 6^th century monastic remains.  Also, as I live over two hours drive away I had no idea of exactly where it was.  Praise the Lord for the internet.  After much searching I found its exact location.  I became intrigued by the island and thought it would be a great idea to take a photo of the beer bottle in front of the church sign on the island. 

Then in a second I began planning similar photos for other Northern Ireland locally produced bottles of beer. Thoughts like Ards Ballyblack stout on the Ballyblack Rd Newtownards,  the malty mild Hilden Halt at Hilden railway halt near Lisburn, the citrusy Cathedral Quarter beer at St Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast etc…

A bit nerdy and sad, yeah, but what the heck.  It would be a bit of fun to do.  What was even better, my new wife and fellow ale drinker Gillian said she would come with me on my placename quest, so surely it couldn’t have been that pathetic an idea?

So the adventure was on.  First two to be done were Belfast Lager at a “Welcome to Belfast” sign (there’s a similar sign on the M2 motorway outside the city but maybe that wasn’t the best place to stop for a photo!) and College Green Belfast Blonde at College Green, Belfast (technically yes, College Green is the brewery name rather than the beer but this is my quest, right?)

Others followed in a matter of days like Ards Ballyblack, Whitewater’s award winning deep fruity Clotworthy Dobbin at Antrim’s Clotworthy Arts Centre; the fresh Clanconnel Weaver’s Gold at Weaver’s Court; and a quartet of Hilden after indulging myself and taking a trip to the Hilden brewery. Hilden Halt; Scullions at Scullions Rd, Mallusk; Cathedral Quarter at St Anne’s Cathedral Belfast and Titanic beer outside the Titanic Visitor Centre.

After talking to Charles from Ards Brewing at the Belfast Beer Festival, I’m hopeful that he’ll produce another batch of the hoppy Pig Island pale ale soon - I've just to find out where it is!  According to him, it’s one of the smallest islands in Strangford Lough and the name reflects the size of his business.  It’s quite small.  So my fun continues… Anyone got a boat?

Oh yeah, I still haven’t been to Inishmacsaint!