Brew to restore ‘golden age’ of stout drinking

SEASONED stout drinkers are about to get a taste of the good old days with the launch of a beer steeped in history.

The Franciscan Well in Cork, one of the country’s leading micro-breweries, will tonight launch its limited edition Shandon Century Extra Stout, brewed to a century-old recipe which harks back to Ireland’s “golden age” of stout drinking.

The Franciscan Well’s head of brewing, New Yorker Russell Garet, said it will remind older stout drinkers of how robust stout used to taste before global brewing giants began to tweak the recipe to combat the rise in the popularity of lagers.

“Fifty years ago, stout was the national pint of Ireland,” he said.

“We had double stout, triple stout and extra stout. Shandon Century has a more robust taste, with more roasted malt character and more hop bitterness, than what you can get today from the big breweries.

“We use two hop varieties in the new stout: Fuggles and East Kent goldings, the oldest hop crop in continuous use in England.”

The pioneering, award-winning brewery already makes Shandon Stout, a creamy dry stout with 4.2% alcohol.

But Mr Russell said the extra stout, with a 7.5% alcohol volume, has a higher concentration of flavours and hop bitterness, with the use of peated malt giving it a unique underlying smokiness.

He spent several months researching old brewing techniques and recipe books, including Stout by Michael J Lewis, and the 1940-published Belgium Brewing, by Jean de Clerk, along with other local historical records before finalising the recipe for Shandon Century.

The stout will be bottled in 1,000 limited edition and numbered one-litre bottles, making it a collector’s item. The retail price will be confirmed today.

The launch also marks the return of bottling to the historic brewery site for the first time in nearly five decades.

The Franciscan Well has won several industry awards since it opened on Cork’s North Mall in 1998. It was built on the site of a Franciscan monastery and well which dated back to 1219.

According to legend, water from the well had miraculous and curative properties and people came from afar to drink from it. The Franciscan Well Mineral Water Company used the well water to make Little Nora Minerals, which were bottled on the site until the 1960s.

Today, the brewery combines modern technology and tradition to brew classic beer styles including lager, ale, stout and wheat beer, none of which contain chemical additives or preservatives.

The Brewpub next door, run by Shane Long, houses three 300-gallon serving tanks behind the bar.

The Franciscan Well was the first Irish micro-brewery to launch a draft wheat beer, a US-style pale ale, a winter warmer called Bell Ringer, and a spiced ale called Phúca.

The brewery replaced Beamish Red with Rebel Red in many of Cork’s pubs in the wake of the Beamish brewery closure.

Picture: Head brewer Russell Garet from New York with a pint of Shandon Century Extra Stout, which has been brewed to a 100-year-old recipe. Mr Garet says it has a more robust flavour than modern stouts. Picture: Denis Scannell