The Chancer American Pale Ale, O Brother Brewing
5.4% €3.79 in O'Briens and other off-licences
I came across one third of the O Brother team at the Craft Brewing Festival in the RDS a few months back. Barry, Brian and Padhraig O’Neill are three brothers from Bray. A shared love of good beer and an entrepreneurial streak led them to set up their own brewery in Kilcoole, just down the road from Bray. Wicklow is coming down with craft breweries at the moment.
Until now their beer has only been available on draught, but the bottled version hits the shelves today. The original plan was to launch with bottles, but the beer was ready nine months before they organised the bottling side of things. They currently have thirty accounts, mainly around Wicklow and Dublin, but also in Cork, Galway and Wexford. "It is tough in the pubs," says Barry, "you are always under pressure to sell and up against the big boys." But with a distributor at the ready, and the beer in bottles, you can expect to see it in good off-licences in the very near future. "This," says Barry, "is Batch 0001! Hang on to the bottles; they will be worth a fortune sometime – when we get to the same size as Sierra Nevada!"
"Loosely Brian is the brewer but we are all a bit of everything – just the two of us here everyday." Padhraig still works as a quantity surveyor, which came in handy when designing and building the brewery. Brian was a horticulturalist, and Barry worked in Bank of New York. He tries to make sure invoices get paid. "It was a bit of a change moving from a company of fifty thousand people to one of two," he says. "It has been amazing, stressful, and wonderful." Barry will be down in O’Briens, Greystones, this evening from 6-8pm if you fancy a quick taste and a chat. As for the Chancer, it is a very pleasant refreshing hoppy pale ale with a nice citrus bite.
SC Pannell Grenache Shiraz Touriga 2013
€26.99
I was sort of sorry to have missed meeting up with Steve Pannell on his recent visit to these shores. Pannell is one of those annoying guys with a Midas touch, winning trophy after trophy while working for a variety of different wine producers.
To add to this, the previous time I met him, he came across as a very pleasant, modest individual. He also makes some terrific wines. All very irritating.
We haven’t seen enough Australian wine in this country in recent years. A combination of our recession, a high Aussie dollar and their preoccupation with China has meant that we are no longer the golden boys who buy their very best wines. That doesn’t mean they stopped making them. Sure they make a lot of very ordinary wine (every country does) and some highly polished but boring "premium" wines, but there is plenty of good interesting stuff too. Pannell’s GST is a delicious medium to full-bodied wine with supple ripe dark fruits, subtle spice and some very well-integrated slightly grainy tannins. It’s not cheap but I loved it.
Buy it: Mitchell & Son, Redmonds in Ranelagh, Blackrock Cellar, Londis Malahide, The Wicklow Wine Co or 64 Wine, Glasthule.
