The May issue of Food & Wine features a list of their top 100 food and drink people, places and things. At number 2 we have:
[quote:53vy13gy][b:53vy13gy]The Rise of Irish Microbreweries[/b:53vy13gy]
From the Dungarvan Brewing Company in Waterford, The Hilden Brewery in Belfast to the Franciscan Well Brewery in Cork and the Carlow Brewing Company, it's great to see so many microbreweries flying the flag for good quality, local beer. Visit <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="
www.beoir.org">
www.beoir.org for a full list of Irish breweries.[/quote:53vy13gy]
Heartening, I think. The list isn't in rank order, but it's still nice to be high up on it.
Then at 16 there's Ruth Deveney[/url:53vy13gy] as Best Beer Blog; 80 is Headless Dog "Most Refreshing Breeze From the North" (yes, that's two categories that should really have been awarded to me), 86 is Best-Loved Bier: Paulaner and 98 is Best Beer & Food Matching: L. Mulligan Grocer.
Edit: I missed no. 71 "Best Brew Book", Iorwerth Griffiths's great, but sadly out of date, [i:53vy13gy]Beer & Cider In Ireland: the Complete Guide[/url:53vy13gy][/i:53vy13gy].
Edit edit: Also missed 78, Most Difficult Pub to Order a Beer From: the Porterhouse, "only because every one of the hundreds of beers sound absolutely delicious".
In conjunction with their beer of the month (O'Hara's Red), it looks to me like they are taking beer really properly seriously at Food & Wine, and putting the emphasis on local produce. Which is great.
