Beer Tasting Sessions

Kirin Iciban

Hello Brewers,

The Vaults bar in the IFSC, Dublin 1 is holding beer tasting sessions for two nights mid November. It is being hosted by the chairman of the Beer Academy based in the UK.

The Beer Academys mission statement reads:

"To be recognised as a world leader in the provision of education and training in the understanding and appreciation of beer."

Check out their wesite at:

http://www.beeracademy.org/index.htm

This could be an interesting two nights of drinking, and could be the start of a bigger movement of beer appreciation in the capital.

The Vaults website:

http://www.thevaults.ie/news.php?news_id=106

On a side note:
I attended the launch of the Arainn Mhor Brewery on Arainn Mhor island off Donegal at the weekend. It has two beers in its collection: Bán agus Rua, a belgium style lager at 4.2% and a red ale weighing in at 6%. Very fine smooth beers indeed. Check out their website.

Interesting fact: the beer is in fact made in Belgium!

Long Live Brewing,

Ichiban

bigears

I attended the launch of the Arainn Mhor Brewery on Arainn Mhor island off Donegal at the weekend.

Interesting fact: the beer is in fact made in Belgium!

?? I'm confused, if the beer is brewed in Belgium what is the brewery doing? Judging by the website it seems their beers will be available by the bottle, look forward to trying it I see it on the shelves.

The Vaults bar in the IFSC, Dublin 1 is holding beer tasting sessions for two nights mid November. It is being hosted by the chairman of the Beer Academy based in the UK.

Not bad value, considering it includes 5 beers and a bit of grub as well.

guildofevil

I'm going. That's all there is to it.

guildofevil

bigears wrote:

?? I'm confused, if the beer is brewed in Belgium what is the brewery doing?

Good question.

I had a look at their website and it doesn't actually say anything about a brewery. They refer to themselves as “a new Irish Microbrewing Enterprise” as opposed to a brewery.

What do they actually have on the Island? Is it a pub? A warehouse? Just an office?

If the beer is brewed in Belgium, then it really is just beer branded as Irish, rather than Irish beer.

Hendrixcat

Booked me two tickets for the tasting today. Should be good.

bigears

Likewise, booked on Friday

guildofevil

I'm bringing a friend too.

Looks like there are going to be quite a few of us going.

I wonder what kind of numbers they are looking at.

Has anyone seen this advertised anywhere other than on the website of the vaults?

Hendrixcat

The woman at The Vaults I spoke to said there will be a max of 50 at the tasting on the 14th. I'm bringing along a friend also. Just have to think about who is most worthy. Most of them drink Heineken.....

Adeptus Titanicus

I'd love to go to this, but it's bad timing.

You guys will have to post some beer reviews here. I'm dying to know what beers they'll choose for the tasting

freedgull

Just booked my place for the 14th - I am tempted by the 21st too. 5 different beers and a different speaker

Kirin Iciban

Regarding your question, there is nothing on the island relating to the production or otherwise of the Arainn Mhor beer. Its just sold in the bars. The guy who started the company got a grant from the Gaeltacht to conduct a feasability study as he figured a beer promoted as being from an Irish island would cater for a particular niche. More accruately its a marketing tool really.

If things go well he plans to open a visitor centre on the island that may even be capable of smallscale production, but thats in the successful future.

These beers can now be got in the great Beer and Wine Warehouse, Stillorgan:

www.wineandbeerwarehouse.com


Ichiban

Kirin Iciban

For those going to the beer tasting in the Vaults tonight,
is anyone interested in meeting there for a chin-wag?
Being new to the group, I don't know if this is a strictly on-line interaction or whether you all meet up and knock back a platter of imports...!!

For anyone who is, I guess all I can say is that I'll be wearing a white-spotted black shirt, and my girlfriend will also be in black bondage gear, I mean dressed in some sort of office-casual gear.

Give us a wave

Hope to see a few of you homebrewers there

Ichiban

freedgull

http://static.flickr.com/49/135941169_8871d01151_t.jpg

See you there

bigears

I had signed up for tonight but now I can't make it

I hope you all enjoy the night (but not TOO much ) I'll be looking for a report on proceedings tomorrow

oblivious

What was the tasting like? I though someone post this a list of beer that included Heineken, but the post appears to be going, hope it went well

Adeptus Titanicus

Yeah, someone said (Reaktor?) that they were "tasting" Heineken, Amstel, Sol and Corona or something It's been deleted since last night anyway

freedgull

Coors light
Heineken
Affligem
Amstel
Birra Moretti
Sol
Paulander
Zywiec

Not the most exciting list but it was a good night and the speaker was interesting enough even though as a home brewer there wasn't a huge amount of new info. It was quite interesting having the beers side by side.

bigears

Interesting that most (maybe all?) of the beers are owned by Heineken.

noby

Looking at that list, I'm somewhat relieved I didn't make the 6 hour round trip to go there. Perhaps the talk was good, but it would have been a long way to go to sample a selection of pretty generic lagers.

oblivious

I have to agree with noby, they could have pushed some of the Irish beers that are available. Also it’s not that hard to find other good international beers around Dublin they could have used.

guildofevil

I must say I enjoyed the night. The beer selection could have been a lot better, but the speaker was excellent and I got to put faces to a couple of screen names from this board. There were three good beers featured (Affligem, Paulander Hefe-Weisbier and Zywiec) and the spaghetti carbonara was very nice.

I'm going to go again next week, but if the beer selection comes from the following list, I will be very displeased.

http://www.heinekeninternational.com/pages/article/S2/products_brands_brands_europe.aspx

noby

Makes you wonder exactly how independent this Beer academy is.

Still, if the speaker was good, and there was a mini boards meet up, I guess it's not all bad.

bigears

I have asked for a list of next week's beers. Hopefully that will be more inspiring; if not I'll be sitting in and watching the Champions League :rolleyes:

dereko1969

did anyone go to the second session? would be interested in something like this if it came up again, though as others have said the listed beers didn't really excite. now if someone was to do one on english ales and bitters, i'd be there in a heartbeat.

guildofevil

Yeah, I went and it was rubbish.

The session was hosted by two sales reps, who knew less about the beers they were promoting than I do.

Neither of them were drinking, because they were driving and they were in a terrible hurry to get through the beers and out of there.

I don't see any reason why something like this couldn't be arranged independently though.

Pick a date, choose a pub with a good selection of beers, select a few beers ahead of time, everyone orders the same beer and discusses it. Pay for your own drinks. Simple.

I'd contact the pub to make sure they are OK with it, but, if you arrange it early in the week, most pubs would be happy to sell the extra beers and munchies.

Hmmm. I might give setting this up a try. It'll be the new year before I even think about it, but I wonder of people would be interested.

Anyone?

oblivious

Sounds interesting, I wonder if Dean Mc Guinness, the guy who reviews he beer on the Moncrieff’ show (Newstalk 106) would be interested in talking at it?

Blub2k4

I don't think I'm going to allow this event to be posted here again, due to the fact that the OP hasn't even been back since, and it was not all it was cracked up to be.
I wasn't happy about this at the start and I pm'd him to come back with some answers or risk being banned. I think I'll ban him, feel free to start a new thread with your ideas, I'm locking this one.

Blub2k4

There has been a misunderstanding here which from my point of view was pretty clear at the beginning.
Low post count user pimping an event = spammer, and this is the basis on which I dealt with Kirin, it lead to him abusing me as Stalin, but hey instead of explaining oneself, it's always best to abuse the mod right?

I explained myself and apologised to him and gave the oppurtunity to have the thread reopened but I got no reply, so it stays closed.

Basically it stunk of spam from the start, but it appears it wasn't, my bad.