“South Dublin Brewers” Meet at The Dark Horse, Blackrock

A smaller turnout this time, for what was our second home brew tasting meet in Blackrock’s The Dark Horse. The small turnout didn’t affect either the quality of beer or the craic. First up was an English Mild – another session beer brewed by JohnC. Nice and caramelly with a hint of roasted malt in the background. Bubbles brought along an extract Hefeweizen. It was pronounced very tasty, but a little heavy on the banana flavour, and not enough clove. New member Brewtus gave us a sample of his “Duvel” clone which everyone enjoyed and was pronounced to be pretty close to the original. Shanna also popped in with a bottle of stout for us to sample. The grain bill for this stout included a portion of his own home-roasted barely. Impressive stuff. Bubbles had a second beer on the night – a heavily-hopped American brown ale. Brewed with generous amounts of chocolate malt and Amarillo hops, it was described as being very well-balanced. Finally, Shiny offered us his outstanding historical porter. Drinking well above the 4.5% ABV, this porter had a great level of roasted malt flavour. Shiny himself felt the beer was a little unbalanced, but happily no-one else was in agreement!

Great brewing chat all night too. Brewtus was able to tell us about home brewing in his native New Zealand. We also discussed such topics as haze in Brewdog beers, Galway Bay beers, and the advantages of using liquid yeasts.

We sampled some fine beers available on tap at the Dark Horse. Galway Bay’s Voyager IPA is a fantastic beer with a huge blast of NZ hops. We also sampled a few pints of Trouble Brewing’s Dark Arts, which was available on cask. Lovely stuff.

As always, thanks to Paddy and The Dark Horse for their hospitality, especially for the lovely grub! Craft beer lovers in South Dublin might be interested to know that The Dark Horse have just started hosting a BBQ every Friday evening. Great food and great beer.

The next South Dublin meet is on Monday 17th June at 7:30pm. Visit the South Dublin Brewers forum for details. Hope to see you there.

– Bubbles