We three kings of Orient are, Bearing beer from Cork yes we are...

A Quick post before more from Belgium.

Yesterday I went in to Dublin to get a few more pub notes and pictures for the "some time in the future" Pocket pub Guide - Dublin. First port of call had to be The Bull & castle to get lunch. I had the new Sierra Nevada Celebration Christmas Ale. This was not much of a Christmas beer in the sense that it was no more spiced with spices that make you think of Christmas than Guinness is. However as an IPA style beer, this is fantastic. It is perhaps a little overly bitter, just a little, without a sweet backbone to even it out. Overall I would rather drink a Big Daddy IPA but this is a good one and there is no hint of the fact this is almost 7%. The B&C got a load of them in priced at €4.50 which is very reasonable for such a strong beer (in Ireland) and Geoff (the manager) thinks people were giggling to themselves at such an obvious steal when walking away from the bar with trays of the stuff.

By the way, fair play to the Bull & Castle for not only reducing their prices in line with the budget reduction but actually adding on a few cent to make it 15cent off each beer. That means the normal €4.50 price for Pints of Irish Craft Beer like Galway Hooker has been replaced with a price of €4.35. They also have a clever poster advertising the fact outside and inside the pub with a made up newspaper article about the budget and a 15 cent reduction at The Bull and Castle.

It seems Declan has left the B&C and in his place is a nice young man from Longford who I believe is called Dave. Since there are now two Dave's there, they have to refer to one of them as DaveC. Anyway the new Dave suggested 3 Kings which I had forgotten was available at the B&C. I was told The Beer Nut did not think too much of it but I was confident that I would enjoy it anyway.
Well the beer came and it poured a Dark brown with a slightly off white head.
It smelled of Smoked Gouda Cheese and not much else.
Now the beer came far too cold due to some odd cooling issue where beer lines have even been freezing. Still the beer was packed full of flavour and the smokiness hits you instantly from the first sip. The taste reminds me of a camp-fire in the woods and tasted a lot like a Scotch. I love scotch so this was a good thing for me. As the beer warmed up to room temperature it evened out nicely with the smokiness muting a little and the caramel sweetness of a Red Ale came through.
Imagine O'Hara's Red smoked like an Islay Scotch and this is what you have.
Overall I loved it and am pretty psyched for my next brewday where I will be making a smoked beer myself.
I am not sure if The beer nut simply did not like this Franciscan Well offering or if he was disappointed it was not a little more complex but different people appreciate different beers and I loved this. Had I not had to go off doing pub research I would have happily stayed and had a few more 3 Kings.

**By the way, in the image above I stole part of The Beer nuts image on his blog to stick in the Logo for three kings because the Tap was upstairs in the Beer Hall and it was not open yet. Hope that is ok Mr Nut**