Beer History: Keily's Ale - St. Stephen's Brewery, Waterford

(Tweet-to-Blog-Conversion-Project)

Back in 2017 I posted a reply to an old photograph put up by Waterford History that showed a window of a pub in Waterford with a sign for Kiely's Pale Ale...

'Here's Keily's - 1865...'

(The Carlow Post - 1865)

My next Keily's post in that thread was this...

'...Here's another one from 1866...'

(The Carlow Post - 1866)

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As you can see from these advertisements, St. Stephen's brewed a wide range of ales ... East India Pale Ale, Strong & Mild Ales, Double (XX), Medium & Single Stouts (I'm assuming that these were porters and not just stout (strong) ales, which wouldn't make sense to my mind if categorised in this way?)

I've mentioned the brewery previously in a post about an exhibition in Cork in 1883, where they were then exhibiting an XXX Ale as well as their India Pale Ale (Brewed with malt from Perry's in Rathdowney, Laois.) and an XXX Stout...

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Last week I came across this nice write up about the brewery in the Munster Express from 1895, which originally came from the Irish Mineral Water Journal:

I'm unsure who the author of this passage was but they were seriously impressed by Keily's well hopped and flavoursome ale!

It's interesting to see how many of their comments echo similar points being made about our present beer revival, as to why we need to import so many foreign beers when we have such good ones here? I presume the answer is something to do with keeping breweries on their toes and giving a reference point as to how good is good? The same argument was, and is, given about food too, but surely without this foreign influx of different styles and products our own produce would be a lot less interesting and diverse, and our palates all the poorer too? (Having said all of that I do appreciate the sentiment of their tirade!)

And although I don't really know, I would think that when the time came for Keily's to finally stop brewing ,that foreign imports didn't play a huge part in that decision...

Part of my Tweet-to-Blog-Conversion-Project to give a slightly more permanent and expanded home to some of my previous Tweets.

(My original thread is here)

With thanks to my Local Library's Local Studies room.

Beer History: Pale Stouts ... from Cork and London

(Tweet-to-Blog-Conversion-Project)

Hardly exciting or new but two nice mentions of Beamish & Crawford's Bavarian Pale and Brown Stouts from The Lancet in 1844, the only possible mystery is the Bavarian twist ... also of note is the mention of professor Liebig, previously mentioned here:

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I Tweeted that here back in January 2018 and since then I've come across a couple more mentions of this Bavarian Pale Stout from 1843. Keeping in mind that the word 'Stout' just meant heavy or robust when attached to a beer then and had not become attached solely to a type of strong porter...

I also came across an advertisement for Thrale's Brewery from 1771 - which I posted about here - that mentioned a 'London Pale Stout of a bright Amber Colour, superior to any Pale Beer or Ale imported...'

Note: Other, wiser minds than mine have talked about Pale Stouts in more detail, let Google be your friend...

(Part of my Tweet-to-Blog-Conversion-Project)

(With thanks to my Local Library's Local Studies room and Google Books)

Beer History: Mountjoy Brewery, Brown Ale and Nourishing Stout

(Tweet-to-Blog-Conversion-Project)

"Mountjoy Brewery brewed a 'Dublin Brown Ale' in 1953 it seems ... this is from the Irish Press of that year. I wonder if all their recipes are in someone's safe hands...?"

(This drew a question as to when they actually closed, some websites say 1949 but then I then found something online...)

"... Interesting ... the online version of the Findlater book has an addendum that says it closed in 'August 1956'..."

(I then added this...)

"... Further to the Mountjoy Brown Ale tweet above, here's a dubiously worded advert and a writeup from The Irish Press in 1955. It looks like that brown ale died a death - or isn't mentioned at least - and sadly the brewery was soon to head in the same direction..."

(Part of my Tweet-to-Blog-Conversion-Project - Original Tweet is here)

(With thanks to Carlow Library Local Studies room and Findlater's online book.)

Beer History: Cairnes' Irish Stingo Ale Adverts

(Tweet-to-Blog-Conversion-Project)

"Huh ... I never knew there was an Irish Stingo ale. I'd always associated it with England, but Cairnes brewed one in the 30s..."

(Here's another from the same publication, including a suggestion to mix Cairnes and Stingo!)

Images via:

Drogheda Museum's Blog

An Caman on the Limerick City Library Website

Update: Here's another Irish Stingo advert from the Saturday Herald 1932...

(Part of my Tweet-to-Blog-Conversion-Project - Original Tweet is here...)