RDS Craft Beer Festival 2015

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.