Sean’s Cream Stout

We woke this morning in the charming little village of Kinsale. I spent the day walking around, poking my nose into little shops and sampling the local cuisine.

We stopped into The Kinsale Brewery for one last pint and ended up purchasing a couple of mini-kegs of the 1703 pilsner and Landers Ale. David the brewer stepped out while we were chatting and said, “Do you want to start a batch?”

Do bears s**t in the woods?

I walked back with David into the brewing room where one of the large, stainless-steel vats was lidless. The brown mash was bubbling away and, standing in his wellies on the beer-slick floor with a wry smile on his face, David handed me a plain yellow bucket. The realisation of what I was about to do dawned on me.

“This is the yeast?” I asked.

“That’s the yeast,” he answered.

I stared down into the churning brown fluid. There it was, a blank canvas of sugars and beerstuff waiting for the yeast to be pourn in and start farting itself to death.

I poured.

David chuckled, “You’ll have to come back in three weeks and see how it turned out.”

“What style of beer is this batch?” I asked.

“Cream Stout,” he answered.

Nice wan.

Another trip to Kinsale may be in the works . . .