Supporting craft breweries

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! 🤣

Fair point. I avoided Rye River for a couple of years because of their original cringe plastic paddy marketing.

Any word on whether White Hag are doing a boxtravaganza this year?

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!!!

I got a taste if the IPA last night in UD, surprisingly decent, if not a little thin

Re Boxstravaganza. I Just got the email there. I tried using the discount code supplied as well ( unsuccessfully) 😝

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?

Thomas Connolly's all the way for me. Top class old school bar, with craft options of course.

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.

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)

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.

Can't see any mention of a 21:30 train on Irish rail.ie

First rule of drunk train, we do not talk about drunk train.....