Brown Paper Bag Project

There's been a distinct lack of Irish beer reviewed on this blog, mainly due to the fact that there hasn't been much Irish beer I've found interesting enough to bother writing about. Sometimes it seems that Irish craft breweries spend their energy and creativity competing with the big breweries, and making beer not much tastier or interesting. This has finally changed with the Brown Paper Bag Project. While at their own admission they're not technically a brewery (they don't brew their own beer) they are no strangers to the beer industry in Ireland, the owners also being the owners of L.Mulligan Grocer and W.J Kavanagh, two of Dublin's finest pubs for people looking for good beer.
The first beer they released is a 7.4% single hop Belgian style ale called Dr.Rudi, named for the variety of hop used. Nothing like this has been released by an Irish based company before, and it's a fantastic beer. The bitterness of the hops played nicely with the fruitiness of the belgian yeast and also brought an earthy spiciness to the beer. An amazing start. The newest release is a 5.8% brown ale, a description which isn't all that exciting to be honest, but as soon as I opened it, i knew it was going to be something special. Eschewing  the usual blandness of a british style brown ale, this is a hugely bitter, very dry take on the style, with dark chocolate and coffee in the aroma, and an almost espresso like bitterness on the finish. Very complex at only 5.8%, and another brave move from such a new brewery, or 'Brewing Collective' as the Brown Paper Bag Project describe themselves. These beers wont be around long, so definitely get them whenever you get the chance, and hopefully the demand will encourage them to brew more. Cheers!