He was the Captain of the ill-fated Spanish galleon that floundered on the North Coast of what is now county Antrim in 1558, driven ashore by an easterly gale....
The first of the two brews I am going to review in this post is from a brewery that takes its name from the point of rock where the galleon met a watery grave and produced one of the largest salvageable gold treasures every found some 400 years later....
Lacada Brewery is a community-owned co-operative brewery on the North Coast of Northern Ireland, named for Lacada Point and it's logo sports one of the prizes that were salvaged from the Girona, a ruby-encrusted salamander.
Lacada 'East the Beast' to me is a monster of an IPA even if only 6%ABV, the Hops produce a fragrant fruity IPA, with a kick of bitterness that coat the tongue and produce a refreshing finish and all-round enjoyable beer, the dark amber colour belies the fruitiness, and the aroma from the hops, give a citrusy nose tingle that crashes like a wave on the shore that fills the air with the distinct smell of the sea or in this case grapefruit,...its a bottle conditioned beer, so be prepared for a certain amount of sediment in the bottle...
I love the way the beer is named for a surfers wave that crashes on the beach in Portrush and it is amazing to think that those same waves from the East played such a pivotal role in the history of Lacada point and County Antrim in General....
Now on to the Second brew just across the border in County Derry/Londonderry...Heaneys Farmhouse Brewery, Big Little IPA, not a big ABV on this one but a respectable 4.2% ABV, ( maybe LITTLE in ABV but BIG in Flavour) it has a basket of tropical fruit in the nose and the right amount of Hops to make it an interesting sessionable brew, I get a malty finish that surprised me a little, but it has a bit of depth to it, which I truly love in a beer.
Whilst researching the Brewery, I found out that it belongs to a relation of Seamus Heaney, one of Ireland best-loved poets, and a poet that I have loved from my school days long since past, his poem 'Digging' is one that I remember and it's an anecdotal reference to the 'pen is mightier than the sword' where he wrote 'The squat pen rests; snug as a gun', I hope that someday my Blog will be similar but for now I will be happy if people just enjoy it for what it is, one man's rambling about good beer on this wonderful Island that we live on, where Seamus Heaney wrote of the working man of the land and the beloved North...' those fabulous raiders, those lying in Orkney and Dublin measured against their long swords rusting''