RDS Craft Beer festival

FineAle

Can you scan tickets from your phone or must tickets be strictly printed??

The Hound Gone Wild

FineAle wrote: »

Can you scan tickets from your phone or must tickets be strictly printed??

Saw people scanning phones

BeerNut

The Hound Gone Wild wrote: »

It's not real mead. It's a blend of wine, mead and herbs.

Yep, Bunratty is a pyment.

FineAle

Disappointing festival compared to recent years, enjoyable nonetheless.

Found the half glasses to be a right pain.

the beer revolu

FineAle wrote: »

Found the half glasses to be a right pain.

Why?
Do people at beer festivals still generally want pints?
I find it really hard to get my head around this. Surely if you want to sample many beers, half pints are the way to go.
Personally, I'd go for an even smaller measure but I don't think that would fly with an Irish crowd.

Blut2

Were they plastic glasses again this year? What was the crowd like, as packed as usual or was the lowered level of interest here reflected in the general public too?

ciaran76

Ended up going thanks to Oblivious who kindly donated his winning tickets to me.

Crowds didn't seem as bad on Friday. No long queues.
Food choice was good but expensive.
Plastic 1/2 pint "glasses"

Lots of good beers and special beers for the festival.
A half pint was 1 token which was €3.

Had plenty of samples which most people gave you 1/3 of a pint.

Mont had a great coffee IPA which I went back for.
They pushed the beer through a Randall full of fresh coffee beans.

Technocentral

Great festival, was there on Friday, half pint the perfect measure, had 6 beers I'd never tried or heard of before, Western Herd from Clare were the standout brewery imo, their Coast Road IPA the nicest I've tried in years. Only downside was rip off food prices, knew that in advance from mate so had dinner before I went. White Hag were amazing too with 20 beers! Astonishing how craft beer has progressed in last 10 years in Ireland.

aaronm13

White Hag's Meabh Rua was the stand out beer for me by a mile, absolutely cracking beer. Second was Lough Gills Scotch ale, beautiful. Worst was probably Hook's NEIPA, which was no way even close to the style. Was just a poor IPA at best. Really enjoyed the day considering I hadn't very high expectations. Food was terrible and expensive but ate before hand.

ThisRegard

BeerNut wrote: »

including what I think is the first Irish mead,

Mead only came up for discussion here on Friday and when I checked there's at least 3 out there already claiming to be mead.

http://www.celticwhiskeyshop.com/other/irish-honey-mead

What does it taste like?

BaZmO*

ThisRegard wrote: »

Mead only came up for discussion here on Friday and when I checked there's at least 3 out there already claiming to be mead.

http://www.celticwhiskeyshop.com/other/irish-honey-mead

What does it taste like?

Quite sweet with a honey aftertaste

Brock Turnpike

Enjoyed the festival. Great selection of beers, had a good few chats with the brewers when buying drinks, all of whom were really sound and happy to talk about their brews.

Hadn't even heard of Lough Gill before the festival, but I liked everything I tried from them, in particular the Macadamia Nut Brown Ale. They were telling me that Molloys will start stocking there drinks in a couple of weeks, I'll definitely be picking some up.

Blut2

The Bunratty mead (or pyment apparently, as people in this thread are saying!) is very nice. Its definitely worth trying, both for the taste and the interesting history.

Those two other meads Celtic Whiskey Shop have now must be newer, I haven't seen them before. Will have to try them at some stage.

BeerNut

ThisRegard wrote: »

there's at least 3 out there already claiming to be mead.

Ah yeah, that Atlantic Dry looks like the real deal.