St Mel's Brewing Company Brown Ale - Beer of the Month

KRISTIN JENSEN, co-author of Slainte! The complete Guide To Irish Craft Beers and Ciders, introduces us to St Mel’s Brewing Company Brown Ale

ABOUT THE BREWERY

St Mel’s Brewing Company is an independent Irish-owned brewery founded by Liam Hanlon and Eoin Tynan in 2014. If Liam’s name rings a bell, it’s because he was previously the head brewer at Carlow Brewing Company. Eoin Tynan is new to the industry, though – he has a background in international investment with a masters in business management, but crucially, he has a love of craft beer too.

The brewery is named after St Patrick’s nephew, Mel, who helped spread knowledge and learning throughout the Irish Midlands in the 5th century. Now St Mel’s Brewing Company is hoping to spread the word about craft beer and make you a convert if you aren’t already. Their core range of beers includes a pale ale, helles lager and brown ale as well as some seasonal specials.

ABOUT THE BEER

Beer style: Brown ale
ABV: 5.2%
Colour: Cola brown
Serve in: Mug or pint glass
Matches well with: BBQ, cured meat, game, mushrooms, ploughman’s lunch, pork, red meat, steak, stews

With the pendulum swinging back to shorter, cooler days, thoughts inevitably turn from the golden lagers and sparkling pilsners of summer to the darker beers of autumn and winter. A brown ale is the perfect beer to bridge the gap between the seasons.

A standard brown ale is a mild ale that ranges in colour from copper to deep brown or mahogany and has a sweet, nutty, malty flavour with hints of toffee. This one from St Mel’s is all that and more.

It’s a cola-coloured shade of brown with a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it film of bubbles and a metallic, smoky aroma with lots of dark roasted malt, burnt coffee and dark brown sugar too. That peaty smokiness carries through to the flavour, which is also underpinned by chocolate and a citrus tang of hops. If you like smoky whiskies, you’ll like this beer. The judges at the Killarney Beerfest liked it too – they gave it a silver medal in 2015.

Brown ale is a good match for the foods you’re probably starting to crave around now, like autumnal mushrooms, game and stew. But if the weather holds out for one last BBQ, the smokiness of this particular brown ale would stand up well to a grilled steak with plenty of char.

When it comes to cheese, a brown ale pairs well with an Alpine cheese (Hibernia and St Gall are two good Irish farmhouse examples). But out of all the ways to match beer and cheese, my favourite pairing is a brown ale with a hard cheese like Coolea, Hegarty’s Cheddar, Mossfield or Mount Callan Cheddar – heaven.

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Secretary of the Irish Food Writers’ Guild, Kristin Jensen is a freelance editor specialising in cookery and food books and has worked with many of Ireland's top food writers and chefs.  She writes the Edible Ireland blog and is a co-founder of the Irish Food Bloggers Association and, together with Caroline Hennessy, is joint author of Slainte! The complete Guide To Irish Craft Beers and Ciders .