RDS Craft Beer Festival 2015

Red Wolf

Heading in today, any recommendations?

davidm20

Any tvs for Rugby/soccer?

matrim

davidm20 wrote: »

Any tvs for Rugby/soccer?

They said the would be showing the rugby but I would be surprised if they had soccer.

oblivious

matrim wrote: »

They said the would be showing the rugby but I would be surprised if they had soccer.

are you sure last i heard (friday) there was to be no showing of games

quadrifoglio verde

Red Wolf wrote: »

Heading in today, any recommendations?

Don't do a me on it and post drunk
Don't buy a load of tokens
Get the larger glass, you'll get more beer

Rascals chardonnay saison is excellent
dungarvans strong ale is very strong but hides it excellently. I'll have to taste it sober the next time

matrim

oblivious wrote: »

are you sure last i heard (friday) there was to be no showing of games

I asked them yesterday if the rugby would be shown and they said it would.

KilOit

can't buy online, are they sold out?

Losty Dublin

KilOit wrote: »

can't buy online, are they sold out?

You can pay on the door if you like. Beoir members get 50% off. You might get it honoured if you join today and show a Paypal receipt; it worked for me 2 years ago.

Somebody was asking about the match; they will provide you with wristbands so you can pop out and back in to drink, as Max Boyce calls it, bitter ale

oblivious

Also there is 50% off for Ireland Wales ticket holders

oblivious

Losty Dublin wrote: »

You can pay on the door if you like. Beoir members get 50% off. You might get it honoured if you join today and show a Paypal receipt; it worked for me 2 years ago

Valid membership only I am afraid

matrim

Also there was an app update and it looks to be working for me now

matrim

Not showing match

oblivious

matrim wrote: »

Not showing match

Yep and your in?

matrim

oblivious wrote: »

Yep and your in?

In and out. Across the road watching the match. Will head back in afterwards

BaZmO*

Sold out.

Pre bought tickets only.

Blut2

Just saw they've announced that on Facebook too:

-
All-Ireland Craft Beerfest
43 mins ·

All tickets are officially SOLD OUT! Only pre purchased tickets will now be allowed enter!

-

Thats a bit annoying. I wonder will they be letting people in later on (say around 10pm) as people filter out? I'd imagine they must have gotten a load of post-rugby punters in, who probably won't be staying all night.

Son0vagun

Really enjoyed my day at The RDS.

Beers of Note.

Radikale and their Curious Brew. A beer brewed with no aroma hops, just bittering hops. IMO a important beer, as due to the price of hops brewers are looking towards trying new things. This beer was awesome, dried hopped with Gin Biotanicals, tasted fantastic.

Also, Lamberts Pale Stout. What a beer, bit of a mind **** but it worked, well done to them.

Anything I tried from Rye River was fantastic, and I tried a lot. Delighted to see them give a big two fingers to all you sticker stickers!

But beer of the day was White Hags, Milk Stout through a Coffee Rocket! I could drink it all day, everyday and it would never get boring.

Great day, roll on next year!!!

smallgarden

Popped briefly as the queue for the ladies and the queue for the tokens were ridiculous. I think they only had 6 toilets for ladies unless I missed the main ones. They had a vanity room that was three times the size of the cubicle area

I agree with sonovagun about the white hags stout. Does it always have the coffee or was that just for the show?

ciaran76

I liked the lay out ,much better this year.
This year I decided to try beers outsider my comfort zone for the first couple of hours.
Brown Paper bag had a cherry sour beer and another Belgian amber which I can't recall the names of. Both enjoyed a lot.
Dungarvan raspberry stout was another I enjoyed.
Radikale and their Curious Brew was nice indeed.

My negatives was the security staff had no idea of the layout. The queue for the men's was huge at one stage and I asked was there more toilets 2 different guys said no. Found out later about the portable ones out with the food.

Girls toilets were ridiculous as my other half and friends kept telling me!

No pint glass as stated on ticket?
No tulip style glasses left.

Black Sheep

Went on Friday evening at around 8pm.

There was a brief queue to get in. Security seemed to be a little vague on what they were doing, the head guy seemed to be a bit uncertain about handling ticket-holders versus those looking to pay on the door (us). Everyone was in the same queue. I think if I'd bought tickets in advance I'd have been miffed that there wasn't a faster entry. It still wasn't bad though.

I originally opted for the (free) smaller glass but went back and paid 2 euro for the bigger one once we realised that for that measly outlay you were getting a fuller measure of beer at most stalls for the same token.

Which brings me to the tokens. At the outset I was duly forking over my token for a beer and I went through 6-7 tokens this way. Then, looking around, we finally realised that most of the stalls weren't really too interested in taking the tokens? My friend who was only offering tokens if asked probably had 5 or 6 tokens left out of eight at the end of the night. The whiskey stalls were a bit different and seemed to be more by the book.

I only mention this in passing - I would have been happy to fork over tokens either way. But it seemed like there was plenty of free beer to go around which did make for a convivial atmosphere.

The crowd was friendly. As with other years a decent mix of gender though I would think probably 60/40 or 70/30 male to female... Curious what others think.

Beers-wise I wasn't as rigorous as other years (I normally try and work anti-clockwise around the hall and try something from every other brewer or so) and I don't think I saw every stall, which is a bit of a shame.

My sense of this year is that there were a lot of well-executed fruit infused beers. Raspberry Black Rock stout from Dungarvan, Cherry Dark Arts from Trouble Brewing, Rhubarb wheat beer from O'Hara's... All excellent desert style beers, albeit I preferred the first two over the last.

The 'young and old' Black Rock stout mix from Dungarvan was an interesting offering from a beer heritage point of view. I wonder how many punters had the chance to try stout served like this from years back. Their Seaweed Saison was also on: One of THE Irish craft beers of the year, I feel.

The food stalls seemed to be a little better this year around. The Jane Russell chilli and fennel hotdog I had at the very end of the night was top notch.

For 10 euros plus 2 euros for the glass and 20 euros worth of tokens, a great way to spend a Friday night. I don't think it can be accused of being poor value this year, that's for sure.

MonkstownHoop

I asked for the bigger tulip glass and was given 2 pint glasses instead, was great to have full pints of a couple of session beers to start off with, grand stretch, little fawn and graffiti, I thought mountain mans Vincent Van coff was poor but hairy nuts was great, Obrothers Ipa and double Ipa were good, was looking forward to metalmans heatsink but it was gone, rascals barrel aged Saison was nice also their big hop red infused with coffee, blacks jester brown and sour brown another 2 nice ones along with white gypsy scarlette sour.
Will be going back to Thursday night next year again as it was so busy but it's a good complaint to have.

BaZmO*

Gutted I missed it this year as I've been to all the other ones. Serves me right for waiting on other people to get their sh1t together resulting in us getting there too late yesterday, and it being sold out.

My original plan was to go on Friday, should've stuck to it. For some reason I thought it was on today too. Ah well, ya live and learn.

baron von something

Some great beers there but unfortunately a lot of the ones I wanted to try ran out on the Thursday

Dungarvans 2part pour was nice. Their Saison was decent but a bit run of the mill. Rascals chardonnay Saison was much better

- mountain man hillbilly heaven was real smooth. I enjoy whiskey barrell beers. Not a patch on the Irish whiskey cask Lean Follain. What a beer. Just when you think Leann Folaonn couldn't get any nicer

- sampled blacks sour brown. Very mildly sour , it would be a good gateway sour. White Gypsys sour was nice too, a bit more sour than blacks. I got a bit of a petit filous taste from it. None of these had a patch on Brown Paper Bags Belgian sour. One of my top beers of the fest. Super sharp that cuts right through and total palette cleanser.

Boyne Brewhouse did well with their dortmunder export. I don't see this style often but its something I'd like to drink more of. Their aussy pale ale was refreshing too

Troubles oatmeal ipa was nice but I preferred o'haras sorachi ace ipa. But the ultimate ipa and another one of my festival favourites was from *cough* McGargles *cough*. A big beer at 7.4% but hidden really well and absolutely delicious. Rye rivers watermelon wheat and their grapefruit ale were really nice too

Radikale curious stood out to me too. Lots of complex flavours going on there. Another one I enjoyed was Northbounds Altbier. Their other ones not so much

There wasn't much I tried that I didn't like. Northbounds kolsch was bland. I wasn't fussed on the 8degrees I tried or any from Independent brewery

snowblind

Standard of beers was lower for me than previous years. Of all the sours I tried only the BpB was any good. Of any other new/unusual styles in the Irish market, the only other one I liked was the Chardonnay Saison. A lot of the unusual ones had medicinal flavours, like the pale stout and the coffee and vanilla ale from mountain man.

Rye River didn't do it for me, the coffee porter was decent but the big IPA was too sweet and the lemon berliner had a nasty flavour to it.

BpB Oud Bruin probably the beer of the fest for me.

snowblind

also, how cringey was the radikale branding?
out of context I would think it was satire, but oh no...

BaZmO*

snowblind wrote: »

also, how cringey was the radikale branding?
out of context I would think it was satire, but oh no...

It was just about bearable (and relevant) when Brewdog did it almost 10 years ago. Very cringey now alright.

L1011

The 2/3rds glass was great for getting more than you were 'meant' to nearly every time. Only had one single beer that was clearly poured to the standards - a 9% or similar, from somewhere (I actually can't remember, rather than not saying!) that was poured to the 1/3rd line.

One or two I wanted to try were sold out, even early enough on (I was gone by about 8, having got in early) but it does show how popular the fest has become.

BaZmO*

How busy was it yesterday?

Ronan|Raven

BaZmO* wrote: »

How busy was it yesterday?

Very, from what I remember! From 2pm on it started filling up very fast.

BaZmO*

Ronan|Raven wrote: »

Very, from what I remember! From 2pm on it started filling up very fast.

I was obviously disappointed that I didn't get in but I remember it being so jammed a couple of years ago that it was like a sauna.