Beer in Ireland

Not sure how good it is but

http://localsguidetocork.blogspot.ie/2013/07/top-50-locals-guide-to-cork-pubs.html

 

Recently yes, spent a good part of August in County Cork, and doing it again this year.

I don't really care what Ratebeer's list says. Still would like to see it, for the names of the other beers, link? I admit, it wasn't a local Irish craft beer excursion, but I tried my fair share. I enjoyed Beamish the most. Actually, it seems to be pretty highly rated on Beeradvocate relative to the other Irish beers, but what do I know.....

 

I point to RB because the depth of European beers listed and rated is far superior in numbers than compared to that of BA.

Lumping UK (not splitting into the 4 countries) & Ireland as one is a pretty lazy effort IMHO. Its akin to lumping all of the New England states together !

I won't post a link in case it sets off an alarm (being the 'other' site and all that) but if you go their home page > rating > best beer by country (right hand side of page) >Ireland.

Again - UK/Ireland beers rated on Beer Advocate (and Beamish does have a fair few ratings from folks who had it in Ireland to be fair) tend to be a list of beers commonly available in the US which is a very small sample and pretty middle of the road / average offerings.

You won't get to see any of the new wave of Irish Craft / Micro stuff in the US and you need to hunt it down when in Ireland. Think ... Trouble Brewing, 8 Degrees, Metlaman, Burren, Franciscan Well, West Kerry to name a few.

That said, I don't mind Beamish myself, I prefer it to Guinness but a whole host of new brewers have been producing more interesting stuff in Eire over the last 3 or 5 years.

 

Not to mention what might be termed the "condescension factor".

"It's not lacking in flavour, it's balanced and traditional."
"It's from, like, Britain, so it's one of the original imperial stouts."

 

Fair enough, I am not looking to start a fight about personal tastes. This month when I get there I will try some of the others you mentioned.

But I will say, I took a look at the RB list and Guinness is #5, and if you believe that Beamish is better, than why jump down my throat? Or, you don't agree with the list, so why cite it?

I had several 8 Degrees offerings last August, not bad, but I preferred Beamish and I believe most would. Keep in mind, Beamish also has not been distributed in the US for at least 3-4 years. And I am not saying its a world beater beer, just the best I had during a lengthy stay in County Cork.

 

Guinness is number 5 simply because Americans, like on BA, make up the greatest population of people who rate the beers and it can of course be found all across the states. The format for ranking is based on the number of reviews and is weighted. A beer with 6 reviews of say 4.11 will drop down to 3.25 or something, until it picks up 40 ratings.

However RB does have a much stronger European base than BA (although nowhere the same numbers as folks from the US) hence you see a far more diverse top 50 (and it's Ireland for starters not lumped with the UK!!!) of beers that never make it onto BA.

I don't agree with any lists of European beers based predominantly on reviews/ratings from US dominated websites, as they are largely centred on availabilty in the states where you don't have access to "all" of the best stuff in Europe in your country. This particularly applies to England/Scotland/Wales.

I cite the RB Ireland list because (as with the English list) it is a truer reflection of the best beers from that country when compared to the list on BA.

 

There are many great old Irish pubs that just reek of history and atmosphere. The problem, though, is their generally pitiful beer selection. Guinness or another nitro-stout, Smithwicks, Kilkenny, Harp, Bud and Miller, and not even all of those in one pub. I got very bored with those choices. Scotland has just as many old pubs, but with anywhere from five to even ten or twelve cask ales on hand pump. Plus, they have thirty to several hundred malt whiskeys - much more than you'll find in Irish pubs.

To me it's a no-brainer.

 

Got it, the RB list is relevant to this discussion when it comports with your view, but when it does not, we must ignore it.

Just come up with your own list!

 

No it's relevant to the discussion because it's the most informative and objective list of its kind on the internet.

Unless of course you can direct me to another ?

 

Scotland is much better for beer selection than Ireland--certainly no doubt about that--but let's not pretend that every pub there is some beer utopia. In Edinburgh or Glasgow, as in London or Manchester, the majority of pubs serve shitty macro stuff, often Carlsberg, Stella, etc., with a few boring choices like Deuchars IPA on cask. To pretend otherwise is outright fantasy.

 

Yes, for the most part most Scottish pubs sell mostly macro crap. Just like England or the US. And like these two there has been huge improvements in the Scottish beer world. There's been at least a two fold increase in the number of Scottish pubs in the GBG over the past 20 years just as there are now over 70 breweries when over a similar time frame when there was once barely a dozen.
And the last two years especially have been boom times for craft beer. Even Garret Oliver would agree on this. To downplay this progress is bullshit regardless of whether the majority drinks decent beer or not. I know exactly how things use to be.

 

But when was "progress" even a point of contention here?
The majority of pubs just don't have "five to even ten or twelve cask ales on hand pump". It's as simple as that, and implying otherwise is nonsense.

 

Yes there's not that many pubs in Glasgow that we'd consider "good beer" places - considering there's probably 4-500 or so within glasgow in total you'd be hard pressed to name more than twenty five that offer up a great selection of beer. Not that pubs that don't have any cask/craft keg can't be considered great pubs - clutha vaults for example had a poor selection last time I was in, admittedly probably a couple of years ago now. And three judges/bon accord/ JDWs/ excluded, anywhere that has cask will probably only have a couple on.

I'm sure we are in a much better position now in regards to selection of beer than we were ten years ago

 

Give 'Farrington's of Temple Bar' a go next time you're in Dublin. Its making moves in the right direction.

 

While there is certainly some truth to that, the prevalence of pubs serving a good choice of cask ales in all those cities is higher than the percentage of bars in American cities that serve a decent selection of craft beers. I have no trouble finding numerous cask ale pubs in Glasgow, Edinburgh, and London. The real problem for me is there are so many, I can't get to enough of them.

And the vast majority of bars in the US only serve crap stuff as well.

 

If you reread my post, I said " even ten to twelve". That's far from implying the majority do. And I'm talking about the best, atmospheric, pubs in Scotland, compared to similar ones in Ireland. You decided to bring every nondescript, dingy, back street boozer into the discussion in an attempt to negate the comparison I made.

 

I spent an afternoon there in February, and I agree it is a much improved place over my previous visit of a couple of years ago. Also in Dublin I can recommend L. Mulligan Grocer and WJ Kavanagh's (sister pubs).

I also had some decent pints at the Black Sheep and the Brew Dock, both pubs owned by the same group that owns Bay Brewery and The Salt House in Galway (another place I liked).

Cask Ales were harder to find -- those pubs that had one, seemed to all have the same one (something I've found in previous trips). Kavanagh's has up to three cask beers -- in February they had two beers from The Flower Pot Pub in Derby. The Porterhouse Temple Bar also had a couple of Thornbridge casks when I was there.

Some pictures here

 

Awesome post and link. Now that's what I'm talking about.

 

No mention of Beamish though

 

My goal was to drink Irish Beer brewed by Irish Breweries. Diageo and Heineken need not apply...

(OK, the Tmavý Ležák from the Porterhouse wasn't an Irish beer but it was brewed by an Irish brewery )