STARTED only to keep a manufacturing license, and running on formulae sketched out on napkins, the monks of craft beer in the Franciscan Well Brewery must have had divine inspiration.

THE big fleet had a slow passage in the annual race from Cobh to Blackrock as light winds and frequent rain showers arrived instead of the expected very fresh south easterlies. Indeed the race even had to be shortened to a finish-line a little east of Blackrock Castle; a wise decision with the trip across the two-and-a-half mile stretch of Lough Mahon’s open waters very slow.