The boys, the black stuff and my thirst

And so to the Republic of Ireland. A beautiful and beguiling country with lovely natives.

At our splendid Kinsale hotel you could take breakfast up until 10:30am. On a stag weekend that sort of offer is to be highly treasured. The ever attentive staff kept smiling even when the lads appeared bleary eyed and more than a bit battered at 10:29 precisely. And a naked man roaming in the early hours was benignly accepted as the norm.

Guinness makes you sparkle

This picturesque sailing town near Cork city is said to be the culinary capital of Ireland. And, as well as good food, you can find some terrific music in some great pubs. Yes, in Kinsale, they certainly know how to party.

However, as a cask ale enthusiast, the national keg drink of the Emerald Isle is a bit for a problem for me. Although there are now a handful of micro brewers around, real or cask-conditioned ale is still almost as hard to find as those slithery reptiles that St Patrick is said to have sent packing back in the fifth century.

On a previous trip across the Irish sea I remember searching out some cask beer in the North, a case of Wetherspoons or Wetherspoons at least outside of Belfast city. To be fair, the JDW we did visit was great and offered good real ale from the province’s micros.

But, even with an overall decline in stout consumption in recent years, it is still the ghost of Arthur Guinness that remains ubiquitously supreme. In the south support acts are Murphy’s and Beamish who produce their own versions of the creamy headed black stuff. However, one in every two pints drunk is a Guinness and the Dublin brewery produces a staggering 2.5 million pints a day. Well, on our visit, the lads certainly made a big effort to help sustain this output.

Another quick one

Generally speaking, the alternatives are mainstream fizzy lagers or the highly undistinguished Smithwicks bitter.

So just how did this state of affairs came about? Apparently, once of a day every town in Ireland brewed its own Irish ale, although whiskey and poteen were more often the tipples of choice. In fact, porter was originally the national drink of England, produced in the 18th and 19th centuries by London brewers until fashions changed. It was originally brewed for the market workers of the original Convent Garden and Billingsgate - hence the moniker.

A good deal of it was also exported to Ireland.There, in 1759, the astute Arthur, already a brewer in Leixlip, thought it a good idea to start brewing in Dublin and bought the 9,000 year lease on disused premises in St James Gate for £45 a year. At first he stuck to ale, but in 1787 he was taking the English on at their own game and brewing porter, which at that time was a deep brown colour.

By the turn of the century he brewed only porter and stout porter, simply a stronger version of the tipple.In the early 1800s new roasting techniques for barley and malt allowed the creation of the deep black dry Irish stout we know today and Guinness became famed throughout the British Empire, which just happened to be most of the world. Thus grew a brewing dynasty that was eventually to morph into today’s drinks monolith Diagio.

And as Guinness grew it turned its corporate mind to marketing, spawning some of the most memorable and creative advertising that the beer world has ever seen – remember the splendid Toucan and ‘Guinness is Good for You’ slogan? How would that go down these days with our splendidly paternalistic leaders?

Now, when pushed, I can drink a pint or two of Guinness. And I can testify that it stays down well, even when ploughing through the Atlantic waves at high speed as we did one boating afternoon around the Cork coast. But, for me, stout’s appeal does begin to pall eventually.

For the record I should point out here that there is a Kinsale Brewery, opened in 2001 and producing Kinsale Irish Lager using the German ‘Rheinheitsgebot’ method that ensures purity.

The brewery was the idea of the Keilly brothers who have resurrected the town’s brewing heritage in a 300 year former brewery building in the town centre. Now the beer is available in several pubs as it fights a lonely battle against the big boys of the bar. I believe quite a lot is exported to the States. Some of the lads quite liked it and I did sample a drop, which seemed pleasant enough.

Your blogger at sea - Guinness is good for boating

But soon I found myself craving a pint of Weetwood's Cheshire Cat, Moorhouse's Blond Witch or a Timmies Landlord. On touching down at Manchester, I once again offered thanks to beer goddess Ninkasi for the rich diversity of cask ale from the UK’s burgeoning micro and regional brewers.Sometimes we forget just how blessed we are for beer here - until we leave.

Just a minute, that gives me an idea. Perhaps we can start a new campaign under the catchy slogan ‘Cask is Good for You’? Then, in perhaps only a few years, everyone will be drinking cask-conditioned ale. Thank goodness for Arthur.