‘I bet they won’t show the football. I bet there’ll be olives instead.’ Anton is full of foreboding as we struggle up Winetavern Street in the lashing rain on a Saturday afternoon in early May. We’re here to check out the newest addition to Dublin’s craft beer pub scene, a market which ironically up to now has been characterised by a real lack of variety, two-bit novelty brews that never get ordered more than once and the gravy-scented spectre of the maligned gastrobar.
The Beer Market is divided into three distinct areas: its small ground floor seating area, the bar and more communal counter on the mezzanine level, and an airier room upstairs, with un-fixed tables and chairs and a nice view of the junction of Thomas and High Streets. Decoration is minimal — all low-key wood and unobtrusive lighting — with the implicit suggestion, along with the absence of a television, that aesthetics and sport and everything else are taking a back seat to the real star of the show.
You can only order one thing in this place, and that’s beer. Not only that, but every single one of their twenty beer taps are on rotation. There’s no fixed drinks selection, or guarantee as to what you might find there on any given day. The taps are changed on the fly as well: in the three or so hours that we spend there on a quiet afternoon, employees dust off and re-chalk at least as many of their blackboard menu inserts, hung neatly above the bar. The selection can be a bit daunting, not helped by the fact that the information on each individual sign is limited to brewery, title, ABV% and price, and omitting variety (pils, stout, IPA, etc.), by which most people would be inclined to select their beer. The bar staff are knowledgeable and eager to hand out tasters of each beer on offer, though one can imagine the conversational, trial-and-error approach to ordering becoming less attractive and more anxiety-inducing the busier the place becomes. The American party at the next table have no such qualms, sampling a wide variety before coming to their choices, suggesting that one gets out of the process what one is willing to put in, and that these differences may be at least in part culturally determined. The all-beer, all-rotation bar is new to Dublin though, so give us time.
As for the beer itself, Anton and I start with a Sierra Nevada Narwhal stout (330ml, 10.4%, €6.50) and a Naparbier IPA (330ml, 6.7%, €4.30) respectively. ‘I ordered it ’cause it’s ten per cent,’ he explains while taking a sip. ‘It tastes fucking sick though.’ He offers me some, and there is a sort of sickly, fennelly taste to it that probably needs to be acquired. ‘All that stuff about “acquired taste” is bollocks,’ he says. The Naparbier is a more successful order: creamy, vanilla-tasting and just a little bit hoppy. It would be difficult to tire of drinking it and, on this menu, it represents pretty decent value. (Most beer is served as standard in a 330ml flute glass, though pints are also available.)
Next I order a Birra del Borgo Hoppycat black IPA (330ml, 5.8%, €6.50), a fruity and bitter beer which is not as hoppy as its name suggests, and without the sort of alkaline taste I was expecting. It is a distinctly heavier drink than the Naparbier though, and am happy to share it. Anton orders a Brewdog Jackhammer IPA (330ml, 5.4%, €5.25) which ‘tastes like drowning’. It is acrid and rough and probably the worst beer ordered that day. ‘All IPA tastes the same,’ he points out.
After much deliberation, Anton chooses a Beavertown Gamma Ray (‘You order it for me’) IPA (330ml, 5.4% €5.25) which proves to be a hit. A good, all-round IPA that ticks every box while retaining a little bit of bite. I go for a Beer’d Collossus (330ml, 7.4%, €5.75) which has a smooth, rounded flavour and is the easiest thing to drink we order all evening. A bowl of olives (€3) keeps things ticking over nicely, meanwhile. All in all, a unique, admirable and well-executed idea for a Dublin bar, and easily the best craft beer location in the city.
‘That was actually alright,’ Anton says as we leg it down Thomas Street to catch the United match. ‘The small glasses make you look like a cunt though.’
The Beer Market
13 High Street, Dublin 8
w: galwaybaybrewery.com/beermarket
t: 01 244 4917
Words: Oisín Murphy-Hall
Photos: Killian Broderick
