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Hi, I'm Joe and living in sixmilebridge Co. Clare. I'm opening a restaurant next month and will be selling a good range of craft beers... I'm new to all this so I could do with some advise on what I should stock and any other tips you might have

Welcome to the site Joe! A new thread might be appropriate if you're looking for advice, but as a starting point I'm always impressed if a restaurant stocks at least one good example each of a lager, wheat beer, stout and IPA (that's just my preferences though, others might say that you need more than that, and obviously the more choice the better! That's my minimum though).

For lager, I'd look at either Brooklyn Lager, Sam Adams, or Budvar.

For a wheat beer, I'm a big fan of Konig Ludwig Weissbier (and the dunkel version as well).

For stouts, Black Rock Stout is meant to be exceptional, and isn't widely available yet so bonus points if you stock it! Also good are O'Hara's Stout and Porterhouse Plain.

For IPAs, if you can get a Galway Hooker tap installed then you absolutely should (unfortunately, unlike the others mentioned here, it isn't being bottled yet). I'm a big fan of Sierra Nevada Torpedo IPA too.

Oh, and you should probably have at least one or two trappist beers too, if you want to be regarded as having a properly "good" beer list. I have no real preference between the ones widely available, and I don't think any of them are particularly bad either. I'm sure someone else can weigh in on trappists in more detail.

Good luck with the business, hope it goes well! Let us know how you get on with it.

EDIT: Oh, and I guess you'd need some sort of british ale type thing as well, Old Speckled Hen or something maybe?

EDIT 2: And while you're at it, maybe a witbier, and a Bock, and an Oktoberfest Beer of some sort, and a...

EDIT 3: It's not hard to get me going, is it?

Something you might want to do seeing as you're opening a restaurant is get some literature on beer and food matching, and then try a couple that take your fancy. One book I like is called "The Brewmaster's Table" by Garrett Oliver. Oliver is the Head Brewer at Brooklyn, which Muirgheasa mentioned. You should probably go with some of the irish beers that are already widely available and reasonably popular, O'Hara's maybe a Galway Hooker tap. Brooklyn Lager is in most supermarkets and seems to be getting popular too. I find that many of the belgian beers go very will with food, like strong dark rummy trappist beers, and also lighter spicy saisons. But definitely if I was opening a restaurant and I wanted inspiration about what sort of styles to pick I would go for Garrett Oliver's book.

You could do worse than stocking the whole porterhouse range <!-- s:D --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_biggrin.gif" alt="" title="Very Happy" /><!-- s:D -->

Also make sauces with some of the beers. Bull and Castle do lovely ribs made with an IPA sauce for instance.

&amp;quot;RichieH&amp;quot;:3mh604ka wrote: Something you might want to do seeing as you're opening a restaurant is get some literature on beer and food matching, and then try a couple that take your fancy. One book I like is called "The Brewmaster's Table" by Garrett Oliver. Oliver is the Head Brewer at Brooklyn, which Muirgheasa mentioned. You should probably go with some of the irish beers that are already widely available and reasonably popular, O'Hara's maybe a Galway Hooker tap. Brooklyn Lager is in most supermarkets and seems to be getting popular too. I find that many of the belgian beers go very will with food, like strong dark rummy trappist beers, and also lighter spicy saisons. But definitely if I was opening a restaurant and I wanted inspiration about what sort of styles to pick I would go for Garrett Oliver's book.[/quote:3mh604ka]

I have friends who have an Indian restaurant that I've been trying to gently push to stock a few craft beers- I think I'll make them a gift of that book.

Thanks for all the advise lads, I obviously have a lot to learn... I'm kinda hooked now though, if not a little obsessed.