I've been to Ireland quite a few times and have never been enamoured with Dublin until this last visit. Now I'm eager to return. When we think of Dublin and beer no doubt we think of Guinness and rightly so and I do enjoy drinking a pint of Guinness of five in some of the old pubs in Dublin. However, there has been a surge in microbrewing in Ireland in the past few years and a corresponding surge of pubs in Dublin that are now serving these new beers and not just the usual Guinness, Smithwicks, Harp, Carlsberg, etc.
I'm not going to give a rundown on all of the ones I visited. One can get a pretty thorough overview just looking through Fred Waltman's blog. However I did want to blog about L. Mulligan Grocers as that was my personal favorite of all the beery pubs that I visited in December.
It looks like they've recently changed their website since December: L Mulligan Grocer
Firstly to get there you have to go just a bit outside of the center of Dublin and the main tourist areas to the neighborhood of Stoneybatter on the north side of the river.
I was cautioned by the bartender at The Black Sheep that Stoneybatter wasn't the safest of neighborhoods and one shouldn't stray to far outside the main street especially to the north but to me it looked nice enough at least in the main section. There were row houses that made me think of England more than Ireland.
L. Mulligan Grocer is not hard to find as it's right in the middle of Stoneybatter and it's red facade stands out quite prominently in contrast to the places nearby.
I visited early afternoon on a Sunday to have lunch and enjoy a few beers. First one was a Hairy Goat IPA from Mountian Man Brewing Company in County Cork. It was not only a very nice looking beer it was perhaps my favorite of my entire visit. I could have quaffed a few of these easily.
Other notable beer was the Pumpkin Ale from Dungarvan Brewing Company in Waterford. I'm not normally a big pumpkin ale fan except for CBC's in Cambridge, MA and now this one. I also really enjoyed the Helvick Gold ale on cask from this same brewery at the Palace Bar in the Temple Bar district.
I can't remember what else I had other than the very delicious and comforting Sunday roast chicken that they were serving for lunch but they did have a very impressive selection of beers both on tap, bottle, and even a cask or two. I'll also say that it was a very nice pub and a place that would probably be my regular haunt if I lived in Dublin.
