Farmageddon Beer Launch at Aether & Echo

Last night saw the launch of something very exciting at Aether & Echo for lovers of craft beers in NI (and who doesn’t love craft beer?). Three beers were being celebrated in particular: (GPA) Golden Pale Ale, (IPA) India Pale Ale and (IXP) India Export Porter, all produced by local co-op brewers Farmageddon.

There was a healthy crowd on hand to hear Eoin Wilson talk us through a bit of history about the brewery, watch a wee video of the boys at work and then finally (and most importantly) taste the produce!  The GPA is intended as a drink for anyone who’s perhaps a lager drinker and not familiar with the different tastes and looks of craft beers compared to more mass produced lager.  It was sweet with a light body and slight tastes of grapefruit and citrus, perfect for a summers day, served ice cold.

Next up was the IPA, this had more body and a wonderful amber colour, a stronger drink at 5.5% but with more character and more punch, it had a hoppy malty taste.  Last up was the IXP, which was jet black and different to a stout in consistency – it’s not  as thick. Eoin explained that the inspiration here was dark chocolate orange and I would say that they’ve hit it on the head – a mild burnt toast smell compliments the taste of rich coffee and chocolate, with hints of orange, delicious.

The boys in the co-op have devised this through a love of beer and a want to brew something different. All the waste that they have is recycled into pig food and they use no chemicals or preservatives, all things that add to the great nature of this project and the quality of the beers that they produce. We finished the night up with beer cocktails, chicken wings in a sauce made from the IPA, chicken goujons with a beer batter using the GPA and a BBQ sauce made with the IXP, which were all delicious and showed that these can be as good when used in cooking as they are when being drunk.

The beers can be bought in Aether and Echo and you can keep tabs on the co-ops exploits on their Facebook page.  They also told us that they have planted heritage cider apple trees to produce a cider in the next 2-3 years – I look forward to coming back for the launch of that!