A good session beer for me will be something under 4.5%, will be as flavourful as a full strength beer, and won't be watery either - I just won't end up on my ear after a good few pints/cans over the course of a day's drinking at a family event or bbq. White Hag's Little Fawn or Hope's Hop-On would be good examples. Yum! I mean, I'm all for quality over quantity, but sometimes I just know I'm going to having more than four or five beers, you know?
Untappd seems to think anything under about 6% is a session beer, but, er, no! 🤣
Session beer from a craft brewery is every bit as good as the other beers a craft brewery do.
It's not the marketing as a session beer but rather as a "beer for the sesh" that I think is a misstep from a craft brewer. If it wasn't for this thread I would assume the beer posted earlier was made by the same people as Cute Hoor or was one of those breweries who instantly after being "invested in" brings out some cheap crap pilsner like Fran Well or Beavertown.
Fair point. I avoided Rye River for a couple of years because of their original cringe plastic paddy marketing.
I'll give the Sesh Beer Co a punt if they land in Bradley's purely on the strength on some of the Craic Beer labelled stuff I've had. Plus, I'm glad to see more session strength beers (whatever your definition) irrespective of the poor branding.
Any word on whether White Hag are doing a boxtravaganza this year?
White Hag's Little Fawn
They used to love padding out the Clann boxes with these...
A good few indie breweries have closed in the last 12 or so months. Great to see a new brand on the scene regardless of their branding etc.
Up the Sesh!!!
We'll session through the recession.
I got a taste if the IPA last night in UD, surprisingly decent, if not a little thin
I assume they are brewed at Hope?
They are.
Anyone looking for a decent session beer should try Weights and Measures in any of the GBB pubs.
You wouldn't realise it's a session IPA if you were handed a pint of it.
Re Boxstravaganza. I Just got the email there. I tried using the discount code supplied as well ( unsuccessfully) 😝
Holidaying put Weshhhht shortly. Booked the Mescan Tour, anyone ever do it?
I may find myself with a few hours free on an afternoon in Sligo soon.
Are there any particular bars or off licenses worth stopping by?
Swagman's and Thomas Connolly's are the 2 bars that stand out for me, but anytime I've been in them has been post-Hagstravaganza so it's a low bar.
Thomas Connolly's all the way for me. Top class old school bar, with craft options of course.
I prefer Hardagons for the old school with craft, but they're both decent.
I was in Northern Italy for a 2 week family holiday and it struck me how cheap craft beer was(In a supermarket/off license) compared to Ireland. This was from actual craft brewers like Mastri Birrai Umbri, 620 Passi, Mall and Birra Flea amongst others. All of their 330ml bottles ranged from €1.99-2.19. Beer from the macros like Moretti and Peroni were roughly half that price for same volume. In Ireland you're looking at 2.75 for a 330ml can of Ninth Wave as an example which is about the same ABV(give or take 1%) as most of the craft beers I tried in Italy. The tax on alcohol is 22%(compared to 23% here) so that doesn't really explain it.
You would often hear in Ireland that craft beer is so expensive due to economies of scale and other costs like hops and malt. Surely they arent that much cheaper in Italy? Having said all that out of the many craft beers i tried none were big hoppy hazy IPA/NEIPAs or high ABV stouts like you'd mostly get here. They were mostly pilsners, wits and blond ales with the odd malty IPA thrown in.
Would they have very generous tax breaks for micro breweries maybe.
Also it could be all the other costs being cheaper. A brewery or the final seller might need to hit a much lower GP to turn a profit.
Beer costs different in different countries. That's just a thing. Are Italian industrial beers also cheaper than they are in Ireland? That might might explain why their small batch competitors are cheaper too.
True, this whole EU common market sometimes confuses me. I just feel like if you factored in the cost of the raw materials then it should be roughly the same if White Hag for example brewed Ninth Wave in Spain, Germany, Belgium, Italy etc. I guess Ireland is an island and there are many other factors to consider
Electricity doesn't cost the same. Rates, insurance, wages, shipping all higher here.
(Maybe not rates. I don't have a clue the difference there)
One of the receipts if anyone's interested. Like I said mostly local craft except the Brewdog(and weetabix which I was under orders to buy😅)
22/23% is just the VAT.
Beer also attracts duty. The duty in Ireland is a little more than 3 times that of Italy.
Both countries have a 50% duty reduction for micros.
Anyone gets tickets for Hagstravaganza on the 12th? I've decided to just go down and back to Dublin by the train on the same day. I also noticed they have a special train on, leaving Ballymote for Sligo at 21.30.
Can't see any mention of a 21:30 train on Irish rail.ie
It's not a public train. You can't buy tickets for it. Irish Rail would have been sued out of existence years ago if they allowed decent, sober people onto the post-Hagstravaganza special.
First rule of drunk train, we do not talk about drunk train.....
First time I have heard of someone organising a private train in Ireland.
Classy
