The Accidental Craft Beer Pub Crawl

I hadn’t planned it this way, it just happened. A friend had organised for a few of us to go to the NoFitState Circus in Dublin’s Docklands on a Friday night. Like any reasonable and civilised man, I suggested we meet up beforehand for a couple of pints. Since most of us were coming straight from work it had to be somewhere that did food, but would allow others to just drink; big enough not to be immediately packed with thirsty office workers; and in the general eastern end of Dublin city centre. My back-up plan was The Long Stone, but Messrs Maguire fitted the bill perfectly.

Off to Burgh Quay, then, where I discovered the food menu has taken something of a downturn recently (for God’s sake, don’t have the curry: it will make you sad). Being an optimist, I normally start in Maguire’s with a pint of Weiss in the forlorn hope that they have resurrected the recipe they used for a brief period in 2004, at which point I will buy every keg of it and offer to bear the brewer’s children. This evening, however, despite being framed in the perfect diction which is the hallmark of all Northern Irish people, my request for Weiss produced a Haus. I hadn’t had their Haus lager in years, so I didn’t complain. I still had to have my Weiss though, and that came next. Sadly, still the plain old yellow Maguire’s Weiss, but some day…

At this point the group had assembled and those needing fed were fed. Away we went down the quays to the Docklands, in good time for the performance. Too good, as it turned out, as they hadn’t yet opened: once more unto the pub, dear friends. Ely CHQ overlooks the dock in which the circus tent was pitched, and this being one of the very rare sunny evenings of summer 2007, a crowd was spilling out onto the square. Ely is a chain of wine bars, so my thought on going up to the bar was relief that I’d had my beer fix for the evening and here it would end. I was surprised to see they had a stout tap on the bar and flabbergasted to discover it was pouring O’Hara’s. A very pleasant hour passed on a bench outside the bar, watching the first few punters filtering into the Circus yard, which had been kitted out with picnic tables.

As performance time neared we finished our drinks and made our way down to the tent. Surprise number two of the evening was not so much that the bar in the tent was only stocking one kind of beer, but that it was St Peter’s Organic Ale, and priced only a fraction higher than it sells for in Dublin off licences. Score. I enjoyed a couple of those during the show, retiring at the interval to sip under the stars on the al fresco benches and remind myself that I was still in Dublin.

It was near 11 when the Circus ended and we opted not to stay for the subsequent cabaret. We decided a closing pint was in order, and we needed somewhere in the city centre that wasn’t guaranteed to be packed this late on a Friday night. Though I’m sure it’s a selling point the owners would prefer not to have, the first place I thought of was The Bull & Castle. We picked our way through the Dante’s vision that is Temple Bar on a summer’s night, and sure enough when we reached Christchurch there was a free table just inside the door. Galway Hooker, of course, was the order of the evening.

Only the next day as I reviewed the whole thing in my head did I realise that, for the first time ever I had been on a night out in Dublin, visited four venues — none specifically chosen for the drink they sell — and consumed only craft beer the whole time, most of it Irish. The revolution is at hand, people: drink up!

Discuss this article in the forums