Had a look and it’s still there.
Anyone know who's brewing Ri-Ra Irish Lager?
From what I hear, the Rí Rá pub chain whose Irish footprint is The Taphouse in Ranelagh, bought Larkin's. It may be that Rí Rá Lager is what Larkin's is now. Which would be sad if true.
Hadn't heard that it had been sold. Was probably the last big independent brewery to open.
9 White Deer brewery in Cork have aspecial offers on until March 10th. 3 cases of Stag Kolsch for €90 & €10 delivery, or 2 Kolsch & 1 other case from range for same price. Also do 2 20L kegs of Stag Stout for €170 & €10 delivery. All their produce is Gluten Free. I love their draught, Stag Stout.
Had 1 of the best new (to me anyway) beers I've had in a long time last night, Western Herd Spanish point, an American ale, lovely body to it, 5.9% and doesn't feel it.
Lovely design on the cannas well.
My wife is gluten free and gets the 9 White Deer bottled stout, it's pretty good.
The Kolsch is just bad though.
Yeah not wishing to knock them but I tried the kolsch best Christmas and didn’t like it, and got a raging hangover off of it which was strange because I just had the one or two.
Is the fidelity beer festival happening this year? Any alternatives if not?
No, it's not on this year - there are a number of smaller festivals on around the place, the soonest of which is the Mullingar Wild Beer Festival. It's a festival for spontaneous ferments, sours.
The Franciscan Well Easter Festival is before that: 7th and 8th of April. The Big Grill guys have a festival on over Paddy's weekend in the old fruit and veg market in Smithfield.
It would be disappointing for Larkins to go. After the whole Curious Society thing, I felt they'd actually got their branding right and were moving in the right direction. The beers, imho, were always decent.
Do you have a link to the Fran Well thing. Google is finding nothing on it for me.
it's why I didn't post about it, couldn't find it online
The Franciscan Well Easter Festival is from 1998. It doesn't have an "online". If it did it would be dial-up 😜 Seriously, though, the Fran Well Bar / Original 7 brewery are the absolute pits at marketing.
Here's confirmation that it's on, and when: https://twitter.com/FranWellBar/status/1628443600282349569
Here's my account of last year's: https://thebeernut.blogspot.com/2022/06/back-in-game.html
There were a number of brewery no-shows last year because they messed up accommodation booking, so hopefully that lesson will have been learnt this time round.
It's always free in and opening time is generally 1pm both days.
what's the story with Fran Well? are they back indie?
Sort of. Shane Long still runs the Fran Well Bar and is brewing Original 7 beer from there.
Fran Well bar and Fran Well brewery seem to connected by nothing more than contractual obligations at this stage.
It would make a good case study by a marketing student about how not to do branding: anyone with antipathy towards Molson Coors will be put off by the bar still being called "Franciscan Well", and there's also the risk of Original 7 being perceived as Molson Coors brand too. That wasn't helped by the bar announcing the other day that Original 7 collaborated on Franciscan Well's Well Hazy IPA (which is delicious, btw). I can see why you'd want to keep the Franciscan Well name on the bar if you were the person who put it there 25 years ago and built up all the goodwill around it, but IMO that's the price of selling up.
"Selling up"
Or "having someone believe in what your doing and allowing you to retain full creative control" like many breweries including Fran Well told me.
"Ever since I was a little boy, I dreamed of brewing Archway..."
Is Archway still a thing? Is it outside Dublin, only? I remember loads of posters and other ads for it... all appearing roughly around the same time as Diageo launched Rockshore, using almost exactly the same colour in their own ads!
I think it's gone. I haven't seen it in ages.
There was a draft checkin on Untappd in January, but not a lot of activity otherwise.
Isn't it still around supermarkets in cans. Haven't specifically looked in a while now tbh.
I had a pint of Revolution IPA from Original 7 yesterday. It was fine, nothing remarkable to write home about. Speaking as a guy with 3 years of craft beer experience, it came across "old school" - more like Sierra Nevada, than Whiplash for example.
But the previously mentioned branding is a mess. I follow Fran Well bar on Instagram and they are constantly posting Original 7 in the same photo as a pint of Fran Well. To the uninformed (and barely informed like me), you would think Original 7 is a sub-brand of Fran Well. It's really messy.
I get the whole connection to Fran Well, and that it is indeed brewed on their brewpub premises but it's not a superb exercise.
Also, their post from 13 March shows their stout in a manky glass that has had the print scratched off over time. Who on earth okay-ed that?
This Thursday.
A1 marketing, again. I was only in to beer the the 2020 release and was swooped up by the perceived scarcity and the fancy box.
The attendees for the Fran Well Easter Weekend Beer Festival are:
Looking back on my pictures from last year, it seems more or less like-for-like with the exception of Whiplash and the addition of new kids on the block, Original 7 and Outer Place.
Since it has reverted to its traditional Easter Weekend slot, I more than likely won't be able to go. Good Friday fast + a beer fest, no bueno.
YellowBelly and WhiteField were there too last year. Sad to be missing it but the railway works make the usual daytrip from Dublin unappealing.
I'm in Cork Easter Sunday. I might go if I could find the tiniest sliver of information about it.
