Here’s a big beer infographic for you all…

In the latest ancient beer news (I, know, would we just give it up now) – at the weekend we bottled our ale for Féile Grianán Áiligh and samples for Inishfood 2013.

Féile Grianán is held at Grianan hillfort, Co. Donegal, one of Ireland’s most spectacular hillforts and the most identifiable structure on the landscape in the entire north west region. This Friday there’ll be a Summer Solstice Dawn Chorus, and at 9.30pm Irish landscape spectacle company LUXe will ‘keep the darkness at bay from dusk to dawn’, with an installation of fire and light sculpture ‘weaving a musical pilgrimage’ for all the family and ‘awakening the legendary horsemen that sleep beneath Grianan’.

We’ll be demonstrating brewing in our porto-fulacht on the Saturday – see the festival website (link above) for more detail on the Craft Village and how to get tickets.

Later in the evening of the Saturday we’ll be going along to Inishfood. This year Inishfood is hosting a feast based on ingredients used and recorded in a famous Ulster feast during the 7th century up at the hillfort. Tickets for this event are available from Harry’s Restaurant in Bridgend or online at http://www.eaf.ie/events/inishfood-the-chieftains-feast/ and it promises to be a great event. From the press release:

Donal Doherty, of Harrys Restaurant and Inishfood organiser, adds, ‘The setting for the feast is the amazing old round fort of An Grianan and its wonderful views across Ulster. The sources of the world-class ingredients can actually be seen from standing on the walls of the fort, which will be amazing. It is an outdoor event, so we are praying to the Chieftains for half decent weather. Some of the best Irish chefs are cooking at the feast, including Derek Creagh and Enda McEvoy. Irish chefs Niall Davidson and Rose Greene from Belgium’s famous restaurant In De Wulf are coming home to add their “wild” cooking style to the feast along with their pastry chef, Martijn Bauwens. So the food promises to be something special.’

‘The plan is to cook a whole Dexter beef over wood as a feature during the family day on the 22nd and this becomes the centrepiece for the first feast on this site in over 1,000 years. We’ll be adding famous Donegal dairy produce, shellfish and seafood, our fabulous potatoes and vegetables from Harry’s walled garden. We’ve been researching old Irish hospitality customs and have the recording of the old 7th-century feast and exactly what was cooked as a menu guide. These chefs are some of the best chefs at incorporating wild plants, seaweed and herbs and having the chefs from In De Wuld over really does make this a gathering! In fact, we will be inviting people to help us gather some of these wild herbs with Enda and Niall on the Friday for those that want to get outdoors and explore the wild side of food and Inishowen. We’re adding theatre to the feast with ancient warriors and some brilliant Donegal musicians and the fort will be dressed in wonderful flags and colour.’

‘The feast will be truly unique and different and this may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience a feast of this type and in this setting. Visitors are welcome to participate in the foraging and in the harvesting of vegetables from Harrys walled garden for the feast. This will help give a unique feel as to how fresh and local the ingredients are, just as was the way of life back when An Grianan last hosted a feast.’

We’ll be serving up a few samples of our latest batch at the Feast. Unfortunately, because of the terrible winter and the late blossoming of everything we couldn’t get meadowsweet or heather for this brew (although our bottle conditioned year old ale has heather) so we were forced to add some hops just to get some flavour. More importantly the brewing process is based on our fulacht hot rock ale theory – the hot rocks are added towards the end of the mash and char the barley adding a subtle caramelisation to the beer.. And it’s our theory that this is how beer was prepared in the Bronze Age – for more info see the infographic at the top of the post.

I’ve been playing with Vine recently so here’s a couple of vines (not sure what the applications for archaeology might be, but it’s fun to play with (we’re @mooregroup if you want to follow us))…

Here’s Nigel bottling…

#bottling @Feile_Grianan @Inishfood Two ales.. one w Wheat beer yeast, one w mixed lambick https://t.co/oB8zBqfOkQ

— Moore Group (@mooregroup) June 15, 2013

And here’s the taste test…

Taste tests… Its good https://t.co/39PHE67a4K

— Moore Group (@mooregroup) June 15, 2013

Everyone seemed to like it. We are actually getting better at brewing and our beer is starting to taste very drinkable (in fact it’s very drinkable, if I say so myself) as we improve the recipe and play around with ingredients.

There is more information on all the events at www.feilegriananailigh.com and on Twitter by following @Feile_Grianan and @inishfood. To book these events go to  calling Harrys Restaurant on (07493) 68544 to book.Tickets for the event, which starts at 8.30pm, are €45. Tickets are available for the family fun day on the 22nd June, which starts at 1pm. These are priced at €5 adults or €15 family tickets.