CulturAle Press

Lough Gill Irish Punch Up Series Round 1 Irish Sloe Barleywine Ale, Sligo, Ireland

Date:  December 4, 2018

The Story—  The craft movement took its time to wash up on Irish shores.   We think that having what is arguably the best mass produced beer on the planet made for fewer restless drinkers in search of flavor.   But it’s arrived and growing with some enthusiasm.  Ireland was the featured country at the Mondial de la Bierre in Paris this past summer — and featured an array of craft beers that couldn’t have been assembled a few years ago.

Lough Gill is a family owned newcomer opened only two years ago and the family likes to frolic.   This berry-accented barley wine didn’t have to turn out well, but it did.   Brewed with wild Irish sloe berries designed to blend almost indistinguishably with the hops, the concept mostly works well.    The brewery recommends pairing with blue cheese or roast duck.   At 9.5%, however, you might be quacking like one before the dinner is over.

We’re still not used to drinking 9.5% beers out of a can, but it seems to have done no harm.

The Beer—  Huge rich and flavorful. Wood, toffee, sloe-cherry-berry fruit and chewy malt.  I found a hint of slight cocoa in the malt, but Ellie didn’t.  As it drinks there’s plenty of booze and it ends with a dry and slightly papery bitter end.  The sloe berries continue well into the aftertaste.

Value —  Good.  The beer sells for about $5 a pint can on the East Coast.  We bought ours at Half Time Liquors in Poughkeepsie, New York.  if that seems high, consider that a 22 ounce bottle of a beer like this would cost well over ten bucks.

 About these posts:  We taste and evaluate over a thousand beers every year.  The beers posted here rank in the top quarter of those tastings.   Values:  “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.

This week we feature HIGHLIGHTS OF EUROPE–  Some of the great beers we’ve found in our European travels. Some of these are the specific beers readers of Drinking In the Culture wanted us to include in that book.   A few may be some of the surprisingly good beer we’ve found in “bad beer cities”  as we researched our next book – a guide to great beer in European tourist cities. (Planned publication 2019.)

Next week we’ll return to the US and highlight some great American craft beers, some of which we’ve found in researching out first US Beer publication: Brews and Snooze-– Breweries you can visit and walk back to a fine place to spend the night.  Look for it in 2019.

COMING LATER IN DECEMBER:   THE TEN BEST OF THE LAST FIVE YEARS.  We count down to the New Year by thinking back on some of the greatest beers we’ve found in the last five years of hunting.   These beers are in our top 0.2% of the beers we’ve tasted in those five years.