TOPIC:

Santa brought me the new DK book on beer, edited by Michael Jackson. It's a beautiful book full of wonderful pictures and a fair bit if detail. Sadly, the section on Ireland is seriously lacking. I anticipated more what with the recent book on Irish beer but there is only a passing mention of The Porterhouse, and the main pieces are on the big boys - Guinness, Murphy's and Beamish - with a curious piece on the Kinsale Brewing Company, which is now defunct.

I know that we have had debates on the role of this forum, but I can't see anyone else better suited or more enthusiastic when it comes to promoting Irish craft beer. Clearly no one approached those who put this book together and as a result Ireland was drastically under-represented in what will prove to be an internationally available book. So I suppose the question I am asking is are we in a position to be more pro active? Can we make a larger contribution to the promotion of Irish Craft beer abroad? There just isn't anyone else bothering with any kind of Irish beer advocacy. We appear to be the only ones, and we are growing all the time. There must come a time when we become some manner of official promoter of great quality Irish craft beer.

Well I am certainly willing to put a bit of time and effort into advocating and promoting beer in Ireland and that is certainly part of what this site is about. What did you have in mind?

Séan Billings
As seen on TV <!-- s;) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_wink.gif" alt="" title="Wink" /><!-- s;) -->

I think that any such enterprise would be doomed to failure (or at least doomed to piddling-along-for-a-bit-then-everyone-getting-bored-and-quitting) without the active cooperation and involvement of the craft beer industry.

I'd love to be involved in this sort of organisation, but I can't even name every functioning craft brewery in Ireland with any kind of certainty, which is the kind of basic information that would be required, right?

[quote:3jsvzuf9]I think that any such enterprise would be doomed to failure (or at least doomed to piddling-along-for-a-bit-then-everyone-getting-bored-and-quitting) without the active cooperation and involvement of the craft beer industry. [/quote:3jsvzuf9]

I'm inclined to agree that it would be hard to do well at the moment. We all have full time jobs to attend to and one brewer I spoke to a while back about CAMRA was outright hostile about such groups. I was just a little exasperated to see so little on Ireland in the book. It's just that, eventually someone will put together and Irish CAMRA type group, and it'll be a little irritating for us to ask if we can join his gang when we are doing so much right now.

[quote:3jsvzuf9]What did you have in mind?[/quote:3jsvzuf9]

Well, the obvious first step is to captitalise on Sean's TV debut. Perhaps a religion could be founded around him. The hairy/beardy look worked for a geezer a few millenium ago, though his influence is waining somewhat now.

&amp;quot;Hendrixcat&amp;quot;:1du0ab8a wrote: eventually someone will put together and Irish CAMRA type group[/quote:1du0ab8a]I really doubt this, unless it grows out of the craft brewing industry itself. I can't see there being the support. If there is, however, happy days and I'd have no problem joining said hypothetical gang. I don't think ICB would suffer from it at all.

(Things I never knew until just now: CAMRA was born in Kerry[/url:1du0ab8a].)

&amp;quot;Hendrixcat&amp;quot;:1du0ab8a wrote: we are doing so much right now.[/quote:1du0ab8a]We are?

&amp;quot;Hendrixcat&amp;quot;:1du0ab8a wrote: The hairy/beardy look worked for a geezer a few millenium ago[/quote:1du0ab8a]Except for that time he went out with a bunch of Romans and got totally hammered...

[quote:14dxjpmo]We are? [/quote:14dxjpmo]

I suppose you're right. We aren't making much difference at all, but nobody else is doing anything so in that respect we must being having some effect. Hooker ale has certainly benefited, anyway.