Comments on: O’Hara’s Irish Red…sort of

By: Al

Al — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 14:01:54 +0000

I don’t think it’s bottled here. For one thing, the bottles aren’t the (U.S.) standard 12 ounce size. They’re 11.2 ounces. 300 ml?

By: The Beer Nut

The Beer Nut — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 12:46:49 +0000

Carlow don’t do their own bottling, and the stuff we get is tankered to Britain and exported back in bottles. It could be that the north American version, which is in a different style of bottle, is sent across the Atlantic in tankers, which I suspect wouldn’t be terribly good for the beer.

Still, it does sound like it’s been sitting around in the shop for nearly a year.

By: Al

Al — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 11:48:11 +0000

I checked the label, and it has a “Best Before” date of 30-Mar-2008.

So, either it didn’t make the transatlantic journey very well or it has been abused by the distributor and/or retailer.

I’ll try getting it again from my preferred retailer and see if it’s in better condition.

By: The Beer Nut

The Beer Nut — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 08:50:49 +0000

Phew! I was just coming on to whine about the giant pint of non-Irish nitro-stout you have depicted down below, and was very gratified to see something about real Irish beer.

The Carlow web site is rather out of date at the moment: Moling’s was rebranded as “O’Hara’s Red” here in Ireland several months ago. Currently it’s a handy way of assessing the freshness of the beer: what it’s called on the label.

Sorry to hear it wasn’t fresh, but that’s the slow rate of turnover of Irish craft beer generally. I’m a little gratified that it’s a problem in the US just as it is here.