Beer of the Week. Wicklow Wolf Apex Oatmeal Stout

 Wicklow Wolf Apex Oatmeal Stout, 6.5% ABV, 440 ml can

“A full-flavoured stout that will leave you wanting more.”

“A full-flavoured stout that will leave you wanting more.” That’s the message from Wicklow Wolf.

The stout is black with a coffee-coloured head (short-lived). Coffee is also in the aromatics. On the palate, intense stuff (coffee and chocolate) with a semi-sweet creamy smoothness. It is creamy and full-flavoured from start to finish. And yes, more is the request! No surprise that there have been a few "spin-offs" from this superb stout, including a Black Cherry Oatmeal Stout, Apex Tiramisu Oatmeal Stout, and Chocolate Oat Milk Coconut Stout.

Very Highly Recommended and Beer of the Week.

It is a member of the Alpha Pack, their core range. They say: Apex champions a heavy malt bill, brewed with only the best flaked Irish Oats, specialty chocolate and coffee malts.” Expect an intense burst of fresh roast coffee, milk chocolate & a delicious creamy smoothness. A full flavoured stout that will leave you wanting more.

Bravo hops hit the scene around 2006 and quickly became a preferred bittering hop. Yakima Hops says it also contributes fruity and floral tones that work well in IPAs, Pale Ales, and Red Ales. It's not the first hops you’d think of when it comes to stout, but the folks at Wicklow Wolf know a thing or two, and it certainly works very well here.

Geek Bits

Hops: Bravo 

Malts: Pale, Chocolate, Roast Crystal, Brown, Carafa, Oat, Cara

* What are your favourites from our 2024 Beer of the Week list? Check it out here.

Beer Of The Week. Brehon Standstill Cold IPA

Brehon Standstill Cold IPA 5.0% ABV, 440 ml can Bradleys 

Remembering Italia Novante when the country came to a standstill!

We didn’t win a game…but that didn’t make a dent in the Italia 90 party in Ireland. Even the hosts’ winner, by Toto Schillachi (RIP), that sent us out at the quarterfinal stage was only a blip. 

We had built up enough credit for that massive party. As the Brehon brewery is based on a working dairy farm, they had to think ahead to view the final game. They recall on the can label, “the cows milked early, not a car on the road, a whole nation around the TV”. A complete standstill! 

Great times, and two decades later, Brehon collaborated with Italian brewery Birraffico Gregorio to deliver this beautiful cold IPA. “Call it burying the hatchet,” they say. But as there never was a hatchet, they called it Standstill instead!

This cold IPA, light gold with streams of bubbles rising towards a white foamy head, combines lager's crisp and refreshing qualities with the bold, hoppy flavours typically found in traditional IPAs, something that bit different for real beer drinkers. Those vibrant hop notes, immediatly noticeble, are balanced with a clean malt backbone. 

Brewed with a lager yeast, the aim was to highlight the hop flavours. It is a refreshing, light-bodied beer featuring notes of tangerine and grapefruit with subtle undertones of pine and citrus. It's ideal for both seasoned IPA drinkers and those new to the style. The chilled fermentation process gives it a smooth, perfectly crisp finish. Very Highly Recommended and Beer of the Week.

* What are your favourites from our 2024 Beer of the Week list? Check it out here.

Wicklow Wolf Mammoth IPA. The big, bad wolf is Beer of the Week

Wicklow Wolf Mammoth IPA 6.2% ABV, 440 ml can 

Beer of the Week!

the big, bad wolf of West Coast IPAs.

The Mammoth, big and bad, is one of the Alpha pack, the core range of Wicklow Wolf beers.

The colour is close to amber and clear, and it has a nice fluffy head that sinks quite slowly. It gets its name because "a mammoth amount" of Strata, Simcoe, Chinook, Cascade, and

Beer of the Week: Whitefield Old Smoke Porter. Explore its dark, delightful depths.

Beer of the Week: Whitefield Old Smoke Porter, 5.4% ABV

500 ml bottle Bradleys

Explore the dark, delightful depths of an exceptional brew!

Delve into the dark depths of Whitefield’s Old Smoke porter, an exceptional brew by Cuilán Loughnane that stands as a testament to the art of balance in craft beer. 

With its pitch-black pour and tantalising smoky aroma accented with

An enduring favourite for many. Kinnegar Limeburner is our Beer of the Week!

Kinnegar Limeburner Kölsch Style Pale Ale, 4.7% ABV, 440 ml can Lidl

An enduring favourite for many

Kinnegar’s Limeburner has stood the test of time, even if “Kölsch Style” is a late addition (but accurate) to the label. It comes in a slightly hazy gold colour, the bubbles shimmying

A must-try for hop lovers. Lough Gill Rising Wind CGX IPA, Beer of the Week

Beer of the Week

Lough Gill Rising Wind CGX IPA, 6.2% ABV, 440 ml can, Bradleys

a must-try for hop lovers

There’s a new vista recently on the horizon and gaining the attention of craft beer producers. Lough Gill was among the first to use the Vista CGX hops with  Rascal Brewing also using it in their excellent Empire Haze. 

Both the Lough Gill and the

Beer of the Week. Heaney Irish Stout. Very much in the classic Irish Stout tradition..

Beer of the Week

Heaney Irish Stout, 4.3% ABV, 500 ml bottle Bradleys

Very much in the classic Irish Stout tradition.

Very much in the classic Irish Stout vein, this Heaney bottle is a favourite of mine and has been so for quite a while. It consistently looks, smells and tastes very much as you’d expect.

The colour combination is a black body and an off-white head. Roast coffee certainly leads the aromatics with dark chocolate also prominent. The flavour is rich. It is smooth and the finish is malty (dry and roasted). Glad to say this current bottle proves that the stout is as good as ever. Satisfaction more or less guaranteed.

Very Highly Recommended.

Heaney recommends pairing it with slow-cooked meat dishes (such as beef cheek, feather-blade of beef or shank of lamb) or pair with a rich chocolate dessert. Serve at ten degrees.

They say: For generations, our family farm has been a place of harvest and inspiration. Our beers are for after the graft. Rural thirst quenchers. Brewed and bottled by Heaney Farmhouse Brewery at The Wood, Bellaghy, Co. Derry.

Beer of the Week. Wicklow Wolf Locavore Summer 2024 Wheat Beer. A Taste of Wicklow in Every Sip

Beer of the Week 

Wicklow Wolf Locavore Summer 2024 Wheat Beer 5.5% ABV, 440 ml can, Bradleys

A Taste of Wicklow in Every Sip

The Wicklow Wolf Locavore Summer 2024 Wheat Beer is a refreshing ode to the Garden County. This golden gem pours with a hazy allure, tempting you to

Beer of the Week. Wicklow Wolf 10th Anniversary American Amber

 Beer of the Week

Wicklow Wolf 10th Anniversary American Amber

4.8% ABV, 440 ml can Bradleys

American Amber will always have a special place in our hearts at Wicklow Wolf. 

The Newtown Mount Kennedy  Brewery has very good reason to get a little nostalgic about their American Amber, our latest

“Pillowy weisse is really nice........” Lineman Organised Fun Hopfenweisse is Beer of the Week

Lineman Organised Fun Hopfenweisse 5.6% ABV, 440 ml can Bradleys

“Pillowy weisse is really nice when we slap a lash of hops in there”.

Pillowy for sure and under that white head it has a mid-gold colour. Aromas of fruit, clove and banana are moderate. It is hoppy and full-bodied, with a

Another top beer from Templemore. One that those Bavarian monk brewers would appreciate. Whitefield Bock is Beer of the Week!

Beer of the Week

Whitefield Bock 7.0% ABV, 500ml bottle Bradleys

Another top beer from Templemore. One that those Bavarian monk brewers would appreciate.

Whitefield's traditional strong lager has a clear copper colour with a persistent and soft off-white silky head. There’s toasty malt in the aromatics and more on the rich, deep, and complex palate. There’s an old legend that Bavarian monks subsisted on bock during long spells of fasting and indeed you feel that some sweet malty sustenance is being delivered with every sip. Maybe that's where the saying "there's eating and drinking in it" came from😉.

The sweet, toasty, nutty aroma and flavour is an excellent addition to a hearty meal of veal, pork, or beef or a nice companion to an earthy cheese course.

Very Highly Recommended. Not altogether a surprise as Whitefield is consistently coming up with the goods, particularly when it comes to ales and lagers and bock is a form of lager.

The brewery kit in Templemore was made to make wheat beer. Brewer Cuilan expands: “So it comes as no surprise that our best sellers in both draught and bottle are Weiss beers. This makes it tricky to brew drier hoppy beers, so we focus on the malty styles of beer with plenty of sweetness.” And their Bock is a fine example, one that those Bavarian monks would recognise and appreciate.

Traditionally Bock is a sweet, relatively strong (6.3–7.6% by volume), a lightly hopped lager that should be clear, with colour ranging from light copper to brown, and a bountiful, persistent off-white head. That’s a summation from Wikipedia. Doppelbock is the bigger and stronger brother of Bock and others in the family include Maibock, Eisenbock, and Weizenbock.

Beer of the Week. 9 White Deer's Well Bred Stag Kolsch

Beer of the Week.

9 White Deer's Well Bred Stag Kolsch 

9 White Deer Stag Kolsch, 4.2% ABV, 500 ml bottle, O’Donovan’s

Stag Kolsch, by 9 White Deer Brewery in Ballyvourney, is our Beer of the Week.

See the fountains of micro-bubbles rise through the yellow/amber body towards the soft white head. This Stag Kolsch, with its high carbonation level and gentle hop character, is palate-friendly with an almost creamy feel. Easy to quaff and easy to see how this refreshing gluten-free and flavoursome beer (more malty than hoppy) has become quite a seller, widely available in both bottle and draught.

But what style is it? Some call it a lager, some call it an ale, others hybrid. Don't worry too much about it, just enjoy! It is a style that originated in Cologne.

The team in 9 White Deer have certainly cracked the style here. They have brewed with German Nobel Hops, Premium Irish and German Malt and German Yeast. Stag Kolsch gets “an extended lagering time where it can develop and mature into a classic premium European style beer”. 

The brewery had, still have, two big “factors” on their side when they set out to produce a Kolsch: the local water and a famous German brewmaster. The water, from the Cork and Kerry mountains, is really soft, just perfect for lager-style beers. 

And the guidance they got from Roland, then brewmaster of the well-known Munich brewery Augustiner and still a friend of the Ballyvourney brewery, could not have been bettered. Kolsch and 9 White Deer were on their way.

Beer of the Week: The White Hag Silver Branch Apple Sour 2023

Beer of the Week

The White Hag Silver Branch Apple Sour 2023

5.0% ABV, 375 ml bottle Bradleys

The Silver Branch Apple Sour, a complex sour beer, has a mid-amber colour and a thin white head. You certainly get the orchard aromas from the wild fermentation Irish Cider. And it is tart on the palate where the apple juice and the Golden Ale base combine to good effect. If you really pay attention,  you'll find slight notes of malt. Brewers White Hag have once again done a great job here and this complex sour beer, with a refreshing finish, is well worth your attention!

The brewery says that Silver Branch “is perfect served with some Tart & Fruity Desserts”. Didn’t have anything handy, other than a regular supermarket apple tart, a pretty decent one as it turned out, but I do think these two were not made for each other.

The White Hag, as most of you know, are well into their myths and legends. It is no different here: “In Irish mythology, the Silver Branch of the apple tree represented a passport to the Otherworld of Tir na nÓg. The effect of the apple in this beer can also be considered a gateway to magic and rebirth.”

Here’s how the magic came about. “For this one, we reached out to our friends at MacIvors and put our heads together. We made a Golden blond and blended it with wild fermentation Irish Cider from MacIvors. We started with our very own locally harvested wild yeast; brewing a beautiful golden sour ale, then blended to create an ancient Celtic ale made with spontaneously fermented Bramley apple juice from MacIvor’s cidery, aged in French Chardonnay Barrels.”

(Check our updated Beer of the Week Index here)

Silver Branch is now available from the brewery webstore and these stellar beer outlets around Ireland 

📍@bradleys_offlic

📍@bierhaus_cork

📍@brees_strandhill

📍@matsonswinestore

📍@shop.worldwidewines

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Our latest Beer of the Week, the impressive lil’ sibling of the Big Bangin’

Beer of the Week w/e 20.01.24

Rye River Lil’ Banging Session IPA, 3.8% ABV, 500 ml bottle

Introducing the impressive lil’ sibling of the Big Bangin’

This is the little sibling of Rye River’s Big Bangin’, coming to you, unpasteurised and centrifuged, at a smooth and sessionable 3.8% ABV (compared to 7.1%).

Aromas are ripe fruits, with a touch of sweet sherbet. There’s a posse of hops in there, all from the USA, so no surprise to find the more exotic fruits (tangerine included) on the palate. But don’t worry - it is not over the top, nowhere near it.

The colour is a golden straw, with a hazy background. This little IPA is well-balanced. And Very Highly Recommended. Be sure to serve it chilled.

Geek Bits:

Malt: Caramalt, Malted oats, Maris Otter, Wheat.

Hops: Amarillo, Cascade, Columbus, El Dorado, Mosaic, Simcoe.

See 2024 Beer of the Week Index here