Cask Ales & Strange Brews 2020
- TheBeerNut
- Festivals/Events
- 4090
The Franciscan Well Brewpub's annual winter beer festival, Cask Ales & Strange Brews, always features a most interesting selection of one-offs and special editions from Irish breweries. As is traditional at this stage, Beoir was invited to assemble a team of judges to put the beers through their paces and pick category winners and the best in show.
A total of 30 beers were divided into four categories and assessed by a team of eight experienced judges, under the supervision of Reuben Gray, ably assisted by Derek Sheridan. The winners were as follows:
This Is How It Changes
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- News
- 5166
"Should one of the state's leading cultural institutions be shilling for a drinks company?"
So opened a section of the Atticus column in The Sunday Times of 15th December 2019. It had been prompted by a tweet from the Irish Museum of Modern Art, celebrating a co-operative venture among companies and organisations in Dublin 8. IMMA staff were expressing their delight at visiting the nearby taproom of Rascals Brewery. "We had so much fun", they said, according to Atticus.
Beer of the Year 2019
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- News
- 8613
While the Irish brewing scene hasn't grown as much in the last twelve months as it has in recent years, the task of picking a best beer from the hundred or so operational breweries has not got any easier. In this the eighth edition of the competition, 73 different beers received a preference from a Beoir member, cutting across styles, strengths and county of origin. As always, every beer brewed on the island and available in the previous year was eligible and voting was open to current Beoir members.
When all the counting up was complete, three winning beers and a winning brewery were selected. And they were:
Review: CAMRA's Good Beer Guide: Belgium
- TheBeerNut
- Reviews
- 9186
Veteran beer writer Tim Webb has been publishing a guide to Belgian beer and pubs since 1992. This and the previous edition in 2014 were co-edited by the Europe-based American writer Joe Stange. A short essay by Webb at the front of the book charts the origin of the guide and announces his retirement from it. That means the next one will have a different feel to the current edition, because this is not simply a list of Belgian pubs and breweries, but rather a series of personal observations. This unusual approach really captures the idiosyncracies of Belgium's beer culture.