Killarney Beer Fest 2016

Here's to a long life

 and a merry one.

A quick death

 and and easy one.

A pretty girl

and an honest one.

A cold beer

and another one!

Hey all! Welcome back to The Art of Caesura!

I hope you've all had fun weeks - I sure have! When the weather is nice in Ireland, full advantage is taken of it! We've been swimming in the Atlantic at Banna Strand and drinking cider on our front lawn (patch of grass) in the blissfully long evenings after work. 

Last weekend was the second ever Killarney Beer Fest. It was a total blast! 150 beers on tap from all over Ireland. All the vendors were really friendly (and very generous with their tastings!) I wanted to only try beers I had never come across before so I avoided my usual go-tos (Killarney Brewing Co., Stonewell Cider, Torc, Trouble Brewing). A couple of beers that stood out were:

The White Hag's - Irish Heather Ale (Gruit Ale) 
In lieu of hops, they use heather from a nearby mountainside in Sligo (Benbulben). It was pretty interesting tasting and I usually wouldn't be a big one for sour ales, but I felt like I could get a bit of the depth they were talking about from having aged this beer in french wine barrels. 

Yellowbelly Brewery - Yellow Belly, Fierce Mild

Really nice dark roasted English Mild Ale. Very drinkable. Happily, the judges thought so too and this beer won gold for dark ales. 

I could only attend on the Saturday, so missed Beoir crowning the beer of the year on Sunday - and damn it all, it was one of the few stouts I hadn't tried. 

Kinnegar Brewing - Flying Saucer 
Which, it seems also won a beer fest in Dublin on Friday - so I'll certainly have to track this one down. 

Beoir's complete list of notable beers can be found here

Anyway the day was fantastic. Hundreds of people came out, great bands played throughout the day, lovely food stalls, there were free beer and cheese pairing talks and beer and food pairing talks (which were fun, insightful and tasty, and hosted by the author of a book I read a few months ago). AND...it didn't rain! I'll definitely be going again next year, hope to see you there!

With all that beer-talk I haven't much time to talk about Silver Tower. I'm pretty happy to have got all 51 minis cleaned of mold-lines and assembled. But haven't managed to get painting yet. I hadn't built any GW minis in a good while now, certainly not since AoS and so I was really properly impressed by how ingeniously these guys came together, full of detail, hiding mold-lines. Plus the shear variety of dudes in this box made building (and will make painting) a delight!

My fiance and I got a game in and had brilliant fun! She was the Mistweaver - blasting and stunning from a distance, and I was the Chieftain, running up and death-blowing all the baddies...to death. 

To keep the hype-train going, I've been checking out The Grand Alliance Community and listening to Heelanhammer 

Alright gang, have a great long weekend (if you live in Ireland). See you next week!


Listening: The Dream is Over - PUP
Playing: Warhammer Quest: The Silver Tower
Drinking: See above


Next Week:
Keeping it silver...