Five Lamps Whiskey Barrel-aged Series
We like mixing our beer with whiskey. The traditional Irish beer drinker had a shot of whiskey chased down by a pint of stout – the pint being the chaser and not the whiskey. In the US, drinkers poured the shot into the beer creating a boilermaker. Jameson has Caskmates whiskey, aged in stout barrels from Franciscan Well Brewery. Now Dublin brewery Five Lamps have released three beers, all aged for a period in whiskey casks.
The man behind it is Brian Fagan, who is involved with Five Lamps and the Glendalough Distillery in Wicklow. “We bottled a 10-year-old single malt earlier this year for Dublin airport, so we sent the six empty casks down to Five Lamps,” says Fagan. The beer draws on the whiskey ingrained in the casks and increases in both strength and flavour. The porter grew from 5 per cent to 7.5 per cent over six months, the red ale from 4.8 per cent to 7 per cent and the IPA increased from 7 per cent to a hefty 10 pre cent. “Generally, I’m not keen on really high-strength beers but the IPA came out at 10 per cent after four months and it worked really well,” says Fagan.
Brewer William Harvey enjoyed the experience, according to Fagan. “We have three to four main beers that we do all the time, so he just loves the idea of doing something different. For him this is the exciting part of the job. He gets to show off to his fellow brewers. For me however, three new labels and three new boxes was something of a nightmare.”
The beers are being sold as a gift pack, containing a bottle of each beer and a glass. Only 900 bottles have been made, each individually numbered. The pack is available for around €16 from specialist off-licences, including Deveney’s Dundrum and Rathmines, Martins, Fairview, Probus, Baggot Street Wines, The Drink Store and Next Door SCR.
Posh Prosecco There is Prosecco and then there is Prosecco; we drink huge quantities of cheap sweetish Frizzante at home and in wine bars. Usually it is made from fairly ordinary wine and only made drinkable by a remedial dose of residual sugar. But there is actually some very good stuff too.
Annamaria Andreucetti is an Irish Italian who grew up in Dublin. She moved to Italy and came across Prosecco, unheard of in Ireland at the time. “I was introduced to it by my husband who, unusually for an Italian, only drinks Champagne or Prosecco,” she says. “When it became popular here I felt there was very little choice so I sourced my own range called SO Prosecco. It was hard at the start of the recession but I am beginning to see the fruits of my work.”
There is also a Frizzante for €14.99, usually sold in restaurants, and the Extra Dry, but I thought the Brut was the best of the three. It is a very stylish, elegant, fruit-filled glass of fizz. Annamaria also imports a delicious Sauvignon Blanc from Collio which retails in for around just under €20, which is well worth trying. She plans to introduce a red wine in 2016. The SO Prosecco Brut is €23 from Donnybrook Fair, Deveneys Dundrum, Avoca Rathcoole, and Next Door, Kildare.
