What's going on with the weather?

It's March 26th and it's snowing in Dublin. Not bad snow, it's not even sticking to the ground but the fact it's now mid spring (yes mid in Ireland) and it's still cold out is very odd. In fact, we had a warmer February. Actually we had some nice sunny days.

One sunny morning was actually fairly recent. Two weeks ago, on Saturday the 16th for instance, the day started out gloriously. I was standing at the train station in Blanchardstown (Dublin suburb) waiting for the train with clear blue skies, hot sun and wishing I was not wearing a long sleeve underneath my Beoir T-Shirt.
I would be somewhat glad of the extra layer a little later. Sporadic hail and rain assaulted us later.

I was on my way to the Irish Craft Beer Village which was located near the IFSC down by the docklands area. This is either the second or third year we have had a craft beer festival for the St Patrick's (Paddy's) week festival. I only know it to be the second but I have heard it said it's the third. Anyway, I was there last year and while it was great, there were some lessons to be learned for this year.

Sadly, the use of plastic cups are still forced upon festival organisers for health and safety/insurance reasons. It was a shame last year because they had ordered thousands of glasses for the festival but could not use them. Thankfully they were still usable in September for the much bigger beer festival in the RDS.

The main reason I was at the beer festival on the Saturday was to give a talk at 4pm about the history of brewing in Ireland, mainly from the time of St Patrick until today. It was supposed to be a quick 20 minute talk with three free tastings of O'Hara's beers. Unfortunately things did not go according to plan. The Ireland - Italy rugby match was on and went on longer than expected. Once that was finally over (we lost), the band had to go back on for a while. I had three people waiting with me for the talk but they eventually had to go.
It was 6pm by the time I was able to make the announcement and only 5 or 6 ended up coming over for the talk. In some ways, it was a good talk because there was a lot more interaction due to the intimate group. We were celebrating Irishness and there is nothing more Irish than starting something 2 hours later than billed.

The delay meant I could drink more beer though, so from my perspective, it was not such a bad thing.
There were not too many surprises at the beer festival, most of the beer is stuff I have had before so I avoided them knowing I can drink them any time in more comfortable surroundings and with more appropriate glassware. Instead I spent most of the day going back and forth between two new beers.
From Carlow (O'Hara's), we had probably the first real attempt by an Irish brewery to bring out a double IPA. This is similar to the regular O'Hara's IPA but it's 7.5% and clearly has more hops thrown in. I'm not sure if it's dry hopped, while the aroma is stronger than its little brother, it still seems less aromatic than one might expect. I look forward to trying this dry hopped on cask some time but even at the festival, the beer was moreish.

The other new beer was a whiskey barrel aged stout from 8 degrees called Kindred Spirit. This was 7% and surprisingly good. The vanilla/oakiness were huge in the beer, almost in your face but without distracting from the rich dark chocolate and stout underneath. To me, it was like an 80% cocoa dark chocolate bar. There was a hint of coffee hidden underneath the vanilla along with notes of honey. This beer was pure heaven for me, the only problem was that it was served far too cold. It seemed colder than the pale ales even.

The only other beer I had was just before I left, I tried the Trouble Brewing sabotage just to see if it was the same or had matured. It was the same, again not a bad beer at all and in fact a firm favourite among many attendees but for me, it's an unfinished beer.

A big thanks to the Carlow Brewing Company for organising yet another fantastic festival. I saw no real issues this time around. Thomas was in charge of the bar and since he works for The Bull and Castle, he certainly knows his craft beer and how to serve it.

The Beer Nut has already written his report and is worth a read.