Smithwicks Homebrew Challenge

[hopapotamus]

would i be right in thinking this whole thing is a poorly thought out advertising stunt , with no intrest in promoting homebrewing , and with little benifit to the nhc ........did the club recive any sponsership money from big D for the use of our logo and good name ?

[johnrm]

That would be a very good summary.
No palms were crossed with silver.

[Will_D]

I think it certainly raised the notion of homebrewing in Ireland.

Not only did Diageo/The Journal/The press give us massive plugs for more info, the very fact that they even Considered that us kitchen sink brewers may just be able to come up with a recipe that would knock peoples socks off speaks for itself!

I suggest Thomas or the exec write a nice letter back to the gate suggesting a few improvements for next year

[bachus]

Craft beer revolution is a thorn in the commercial beverages' side. Most of the beers produced in big international breweries tastes awful (f**king close to water). Beer education and home brewers are threat to commercial brewing - home brewers can show that good beer have taste and flavour and exists something more than cold crap popular lager.

[hopapotamus]

kitchen sink brewer?.. i'have you know good sir that i brew in my bath ,
i do get that we got an increas in traffic but i feel it would have been a whole lot better if instead of being run by pr heads with buzz words it was run by maybe some group of home brewers , maybe a national club of some sort , but paid for and sponsered by the big D , they could have drop points in off licences to be collected by their reps , hops might have been sent out on time and beers brewed for a bit longer .......im not realy into compeating myself , but just felt odd about them useing us to gain creditability , just my opinion

[garciaBernal]

The Curraghgower in Limerick was listed for last Friday at 7.30. Nobody in the pub knew anything about it when I asked about the two beers.

[Drum]

The Curraghgower in Limerick was listed for last Friday at 7.30. Nobody in the pub knew anything about it when I asked about the two beers.

That's the second pub that was supposed to have the beers for sampling but knew nothing about it.

Did anyone actually get to taste the beers at any of the other 8 pubs listed?

[irish_goat]

The winner announcement is this Wednesday. I think after we'll sit down and do a review of the competition, and then as Will suggests, send our feedback onto the organisers.

Haven't tasted the beers myself yet but I was pleasantly surprised to see that both beers were brewed to 6.5%+.

[Will_D]

Indeed Thomas as was I!

Great that they didn't dumb them down in an way.

Will be very interested to see what Simthwicks do with these two great recipes in the future.

[irish_goat]

Winner was announced last night, 2 fellas from Celbridge called Ryan and Stephen won with their Old Town Ale. They're aware of the club and have been meaning to get involved so I got their number and will be in touch and see if they are interested in going to a Liffey Brewer's meetup.

Open Gate is an interesting place, wasn't massively impressed by the beers available but had a chat with head brewer Jason, formerly of Fran Well, and he has some interesting ideas in the pipeline and said he pretty much has free reign to brew whatever he wants. He's only recently started so the beers there last night were probably not his own. It's open to the public from today onwards anyway, bit of a trek if you're not based around the area though.

From the club's point of view, we'll do a review of the competition and our involvement when the dust settles.