The Porterhouse Beer & Whiskey Festival

Pin It Now! The Porterhouse is running a beer and whiskey festival at the moment. It started on Thursday with the Michael Jackson (nothing to do with the pop star) awards, and its running until April 5th. Bionic Laura wrote a great piece about this as she was a judge, read here. As well as their own beer and their new Chocolate Truffle stout, they also have guest beers from other Irish breweries. So I had to go in and sample the delights, my wife went to Drogheda for the day to visit a friend. Unfortunately no one was able to come in with me so another day drinking beer by myself.

I sat at the bar and the first thing on my mind was food and also some beer to go with it. I ordered Bangers and mash and decided to try the Galway hooker dark wheat. I also ordered a Chocolate truffle stout and left that to come to room temperature.

So the Hooker, this was my second outing with a hooker. The first one is the beloved Galway hooker with all its hops and citrus flavours. This one is a darker beast and very different. I hope Galway hooker decided to brew other styles also.
The first thing about this beer is that it pours like a stout, look how dark it is. It does taste like a cross between a stout and a wheat beer. I have had very few dunkel weisse beers before but this was one of the best. It was certainly better than the Erdinger offering. It had a light hop aftertaste and a nice carbonated mouthfeel. It is certainly drinkable and I liked it a lot. It is not however a very complex beer and it seems to shine in its simplicity.


After the Hooker and my food was gone, I tried the stout. This was the main reason I was here. I love chocolate and I love a stout so combining the two together should be heaven for me so I had to savour it.

Off the nose, I was overpowered with Dark Chocolate and a lot of Cocoa. It pours dark, but not black. It is a dark amber colour. In the mouth I was surprised as it was much lighter in feel than I expected.
The second shock was how bitter it was, I was expecting a sweeter stout due to the chocolate but this was not sweet at all. The cocoa is overpowering, in a good way though. There is also a burnt coffee aftertaste. I enjoyed this beer a lot, at first that is. As I got half way down and it was at room temperature I started to notice something else, the cocoa was dissipating fast and being replaced with another familiar taste. Cookie Dough? I was brought to mind immediately of the Porterhouse Plain porter which I talked about the last time I was there. I did not like the plain that much. At this point it started getting very crowded at the bar so I grabbed my stuff and moved the back of the bar which is above it but still at the bar if you know where I am talking about. You can look down on the main bar and still order drinks. Up there I found a card which talked about the festival and what beers they had and it was on this card that I read that the Chocolate truffle stout is actually based on their award winning plain porter. Ah it all makes sense now, they took plain porter and added cocoa to it. Even though the cocoa dissipates half way through, I still like this more than the plain but this is not a patch on Wrasslers XXXX or even the Oyster stout.



Next up I tried a half pint of BrainBlaitsa. I had never had this and heard it was good, turns out it is much better than just good. This weighs in at 7% making it their strongest beer. This is one reason I got a half, the other being that I wanted to pace myself so I could fit in more beer and not have to go to the bathroom all the time. I also did not want to be "too" wasted. Anyway you would expect a 7% beer to taste of this fact but it does not at all. In fact, the first thing I noticed was the fruity smell off the nose - Strawberries? I took a taste and my brain confirmed that it tastes like strawberries. This beer tastes like a cross between Fruli and a hoppy ale, it certainly has hops. I was surprised by how much I liked this beer actually as I would not be a fruli person at all. This will be one I will have again.

When I ordered the brainblaista I also got a pint of Clotworthy Dobbin to let warm a little. I had heard great things about this. This is brewed by the Whitewater brewery in Co. Down (not Antrim is I said, thanks beernut) and is one of the guest beers. This was a little lighter in colour than I expected, then again I did not know it was a Ruby ale and expected a darker porter.
The Aroma was a little fruity with the hops coming through. It has a very nice carbonated mouthfeel and is not heavy at all. This is a great session beer, it was absolutely drinkable and delicious. The bar man asked me what I thought so I am guessing it is one of his favourites. The aftertaste is also wonderful with toffee sweetness and bitter hops elaving a perfect balance.
I wonder is this better from the bottle rather than draught? Probably is so I will have to track some down, I have never seen so might have to make a special trip to one of the good Dublin Off-Licenses.

Next up came a little test using two of my favourite beers. I ordered them in half pints again so I could pace myself.
In one corner (left) is Galway hooker (from Roscommon). In the other corner is Purgatory pale ale from Corks Franciscan well brewery. You may have read my blog on the Franciscan well and Purgatory in particular, I loved this beer. I also love the hooker and since they are both pale ales, I decided I needed to compare them.

The first difference is obvious from the picture, the hooker is crystal clear and the purgatory is cloudy and looks like a wheat beer.
The second is mouthfeel, the hooker has more carbonation and feels better in the mouth than the purgatory.
Thirdly the hooker has a more hoppy bitter taste to it where as the purgatory is lovely and bitter but has a sweeter taste.
The hooker also has the clear crisp citrus notes.

This is a tough one as I love them both but if I had to pick one, it would be the hooker for me. It would depend on your own taste of course.

At this point I left the Porterhouse and went for walk around temple bar. I was trying to decide if I should move to another porterhouse after my walk or go to the Bull and Castle and I decided on the bull and castle in the end and walked back in that direction. There was a food market in temple bar so I headed to an ATM first and then off towards Christchurch.

On arriving at the Bull and Castle I was at the opposite end of the bar to last time. I stood for a moment and looked at one of the fridges and a bottle of Black sheep ale caught my eye so I ordered that. Sorry about the image quality. Anyway this was a nice dry English ale, to me it was like an ESB but it seems to be classified as an English Pale Ale. No matter what it is, it was pretty damn tasty. I am afraid I do not remember much more than that as I got talking to Geoff and did not take any more notes.
Next up I ordered a beer I did not recognise from the Fullers section. I did not know what it was so I asked the bar man to let me take a look and I decided to have it. It was the Whitstable bay Organic. It was shepherd Naeme and not Fullers which should have been obvious to me from the clear bottle and its shape.
Anyway this was nice and refreshing. It had honey notes and it was crisp and clean tasting.... yummy organic goodness. There was a slight malt and hop character and it had a great mouthfeel. This is a wonderful summer beer.

I got talking to Geoff again for a bit and someone ordered a Paulaner Salvator which I had been eyeing up in the fridge so I asked Geoff about it and got a bottle myself.
There is a time when you have been drinking as many beers as I have at this point when one is the one too many. This was it, I will explain in a moment. Firstly here is what I remember. It was sweet and fruity. That's it....
Here is what I wrote down on my notepad. "Dark wheat beer" (which it is not). I also wrote "wife would like it" and I think this is true.
I also wrote down 7.9% and this explains the next thing I wrote. "*Drunk point 1/5th through" and then I skip a line and have down: "16:48 i am pretty Drunk"
Apparently I called my wife a few minutes later, also it seems I ordered a fisherman's Pie. I do not remember this at all, I hope it was good.
Here is a picture of what I wrote, my handwriting is only marginally better than this when I am sober.
I worried this morning in bed that I paid Geoff for the last beer as the others had been cash. I checked my receipt and saw the seafood pie on it so I did pay but I paid for food as well as the Salvator so this had me curious. Some snooping in my phone found talk of fishermans pie so I asked my wife did she had it or did I. My wife laughed and told me I texted her to let her know I was eating fish pie (she was in Drogheda).

I must have left then at some point and walked to Busaras though I do not remember getting there. I do remember walking in though and I lay down beside a pillar and closed my eyes for a bit. I remember two people asking me if I was ok? I was fine, just resting while waiting for my bus. Anyway I sobered up pretty quickly then.
I do remember being in line but it turned out the bus to Galway was express so would not stop in Rochfortbridge. I asked at the service desk what door the next bus would be at and was told 7? That made no sense to me as door 7 was for kells so I ignored the muppet who clearly did not know how to do his job and tried the next bus for Galway which was fine. So at this point I had my faculties back and I was grand. The bust driver was listening to the Irish match on the radio and he seemed to be in a hurry which suited me fine. I got home, called my wife and told her I was getting Chinese and asked what she would like. I had a curry, left half of it for the morning and watched star trek . I also had 4 pints of water which was great as I woke up early and got up with no ill effects.

Anyway I had a great time in Dublin, I just hope I did not do something stupid in the Bull and Castle before I left.