Here for the beer

THERE'S an acrid whiff of hops floating on the air around Temple Bar these days

THERE'S an acrid whiff of hops floating on the air around Temple Bar these days. And no, it's not just a prevailing wind from the direction of St James's Gate. It's the new microbrewery on the corner of Parliament Street and East Essex Street, which has just opened its doors - and its kegs.

The Porterhouse Brewing Company is owned by beer buffs Oliver Hughes and Liam La Hart. Their message is simple and easy to swallow: "Beer tastes, says Oliver. "It's not just there for idle consumption; it should be full of flavour. But," he laments, "the recent trend - over the last two decades - has been for a bland product."

Oliver and Liam know what they are talking about during the early 1980s they brewed Harty's traditional ale in Blessington which they supplied to several pubs in Dublin. This time round, though, they are not relying solely on their own expertise. "We recognise that other people are better brewers than us," admits Oliver. "And so we decided that we wanted the best brewmaster in the world." And they found him, practically on the doorstep, across the way in Manchester. Enter Brendan Dobbin: a feisty, peppery man, originally from Finaghy in Belfast, with a string of international awards to his name - and a slew of unprintable opinions on commercial brews.

Obsessed by beer, wired to the moon and unencumbered by any hint of modesty, this is a man with a singular fervour.

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"A prophet isn't normally welcome in his own land or country," he asserts, with just a" hint of humour breaking out from behind his steel-blue gaze, "but I was picked to do the job here because I'm the best! No, go on, get it down on paper," he unblushingly encourages this reporter.

I DIDN'T get the chance to confirm Brendan Dobbin's word; the initial brews were still being made in the five-storey, tower brewery which adjoins the pub. From the malt store on the top floor, where the grains are mixed and milled, down to the basement, where the finished product is fermented and matured in tall cylinders, the whole lot is tended by four hardworking brewers who dart up and down a narrow, spiral staircase.

The heart of the operation is the copper - a squat, gleaming, steaming, monstrous vessel - where the hops are added to the immature brew and boiled to release their bitter, aromatic magic.

And hops are all-important to the Porterhouse Brewing Company, which uses the real thing, not a liquid extract, like some of the big breweries. Seventeen different varieties are shipped in among them American-grown Tettnang, East Kent Goldings, Hallertau Perle from Germany and, of course, good old Fuggles, beloved by home-brewers.

With these 17 hops and with malted barley and yeast, Brendan Dobbin has designed eight beers for the Porterhouse Brewing Company. And when he is sure that the recipes are all fool-proof, off he will go to the next nascent brewery: his know-how is so much in demand that brew-pub owners are queuing up to employ him.

Each beer has a clearly discernible taste: "When we say stout we mean stout. Our Wrasslers XXXX will be traditional in every way what an old-hand, ""Dublin stout-drinker will expect." Those raised on today's lighter black stuff will find Porterhouse Porter more to their taste. And vegetarians should steer well clear of Oyster Stout which has - yes - real oysters in it. Other beers include three, lagers, a red ale and a super-charged brew, An Brainblasta with seven per cent alcohol, which will be sold only in half-pints.

Drinkers in the pub - and patrons in the restaurant which occupies the top two floors - will be able to view the process through a glass wall. "It will be a very visual pub," claims Liam La Hart. The restaurant kitchen will also be a feast for the eyes, for here chef David Bagnall will perform publicly on a wood-fired burner. Food will be an eclectic mixum-gatherum of international cuisine: hot, spicy and tasty food from Morocco, Peru, Barbados, Mexico, Jamaica, designed to complement the robust character of the beers.

"We're not going for mass market beers," says Oliver Hughes. "We compare ourselves to a small wine industry or a small cheese industry. There was a time when we thought that all cheese came in cardboard boxes and had a uniform shape. But now we have the Gubee the small cheeses. Ours is small brewing in the same way."

Small brewing but definitely not small beer.