Mo'vember

In order to raise funds and awareness for the fight against Prostate Cancer, on 31st October, we shaved our faces clean (a traumatic experience for some who were quite fond of their beardiness). We then waited...and waited, anxiously anticipating the first blooms of moustachioed autumnal stylings, some of us planning walrus tusk-like growth, others a more elegant Dali-esque effort. The first few days took some resilience with November throwing its wintery best at us, and previously bearded faces facing the elements. Hardily we persevered, losing some of the less hirsute Mulligers on the way, and several of us are now the proud owners of moustaches a 1970s porn star would be proud to call their own.

For anyone wishing to donate to the L Mulligan Grocer Mo'vember fund can do it in one (or all!)of three ways:

1. In a most organized fashion we have joined the Movember website and have a proper donate button for your contributing pleasure. The donation can be as large or as little as you desire, and can be done anonymously if that’s what you wish.

2. Secondly, we have provided away for you to drink some tasty wine whilst also passing the hat. In association with Shane Murphy from La Rousse Foods (and Stoneybatter!) we are donating €2 a bottle from each bottle of Mo Monastrell 2009 during November.

Monastrell is the main grape variety of Alicante and Jumilla in Southern Spain, it is also known as Mourvedre in France where it is one of the main components of Chateauneuf du pape and Bandol, so it makes fairly big, hearty wines. This is a big, juicy red with red cherry with fresh clean fruit notes of raspberry and black pepper. It is €6 a glass and €25 a bottle.

3. Finally, rounding out our bushy upperlipped season, is our monthly table quiz at 8.30pm-ish this Sunday where I hope (and fear) I will see many a moustache mouth utter expletives at our ticklingly tricky questions. As is normal at the LMG quiz nights, we offer people the opportunity to donate some cash to a charity. Normally the winning team gets to choose the recipient of everyones' generosity, but on this occasion we must insist that it goes to the Mo’vember cause and the Irish Cancer Society. Further, LMG will match the amount collected on the night and add that to the total donation. Huzzah!

Alternatively, you could just come down, look at our impressive moustaches (an endangered species) and point, just don’t laugh.

Beer tasting and other assorted tales

Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge.
Khalil Gibran

The thing I enjoy about doing beer tastings is the craic that I have. This sounds positively narcissistic I realise, and it is; but allow me to explain myself a little!

I have always enjoyed reading about beer, drinking beer and especially being engaged by other people’s knowledge of beer. I have found that it is through stories, anecdotes and “did you know?s” that my interest is constantly being piqued. We are not talking about PH levels or mash efficiencies here, more along the lines of the etymology of beer styles, or the theory that beer created civilisation as we know it! Fun facts and mad cap ideas as they may be, they are still laden with kernels of information that frequently fan the embers of a deeper curiosity. I know they have done for me, and it is with continuing joy that I watch as people in the tasting sessions put up their hand up to ask the beery question that they have always wanted to know the answer to. It could be what the difference between lager and ale is, why wheat beers are cloudy, or what is beer made from, all valid questions and make for interesting discussions.

Now, I would never be so pompous as to suggest that I have such a level of knowledge as to be able impart all wisdom to the initiated and uninitiated alike, or to withdraw to a mountain top to be sought out like a Buddhist beer master! Like everything else in life, the more I have learned, the clearer I can see the gaps in my knowledge, and so the thirst intensifies!


My next beer tasting will be on the Saturday the 12th of November where we will taste 8 beers, with a break in the middle for some food, all between 15:00 and 17:00, for €25. If the truth be told, it rarely ends at 17:00 as I talk too much, but we always get through the beer and food, no matter how long it takes. In the sessions I like to focus on locally produced beers, as I feel it is important to highlight the wonderful products that are coming out of our breweries, from Blonde Ales to Wheat beers, through Porters and beyond, so I think I will stick to this path for Saturday week. As we now have two cask engines, it would remiss of me to not allow everyone to at least try the cask conditioned beer that has been, until recently, the guarded bastion of British pub culture. Apart from that, I guess you will just have to wait and see.


Cheers!

Beer and Cheese

This weekend we shall be matching beers and cheese in association with Bord Bia's Farmhouse Cheese and Irish Craft Beer weekend. Friday and Saturday we are recommending beers to match especially with our house cheese board, Sunday and Monday we will be matching three cheeses with three draft beers, available over the counter in the bar and on Monday we shall host a craft beer and cheese tutored tasting starting at 8.30pm. To sign up, please email 'hello@lmulligangrocer.com'. Places are limited.

Whiskey and Dessert Event Now Booked Out

To join our mailing list for advance notice of such events email hello@lmulligangrocer.com

Whiskey and Dessert-Event now booked out

We match each of the dishes on our menu with a recommended whisk(e)y. Sometimes when working on the matches, the pairings really work, they sing in syncopated duet like the corny teenagers on the 'match.com' ad... other times, the whiskey overwhelms the food, the delicate notes being drowned out by its boozy partner (or vice versa).

My fledgling love affair with whisk(e)y has resulted in a notebook crammed with clumsily-phrased tasting notes, most scotch taped in, having been hastily scrawled on the back of a beer mat, old envelope, even a flight ticket stub. The book is filled with various adjectives for sweet: cloying, candied, honeyed, caramel, muscavado, syrupy, saccharine (and the odd reference to Jordan Almonds). It is natural then, that many of these whiskeys would be excellent matched with dessert. In fact, we have a section on our dessert menu for whiskeys served as dessert, their big sherry, dried fruit and porty flavours the perfect end to a meal.

Next Tuesday we are partnering with Tullamore Dew to present a dessert and whiskey tasting. It is a formal tasting, where each of the whiskeys will be matched with a dessert. It will kick off at 8p.m. and there is no charge for attending, but places are limited so we ask that you email us to reserve a place (Event now fully booked!) if you change your mind and can't attend anymore!

Posted by Seáneen.

Whiskey and Dessert Tasting.
8 p.m. Tuesday 18th October.
L. Mulligan. Grocer.
18 Stoneybatter, Dublin 7.
Free of Charge, please book via email: hello@lmulligangrocer.com Event now fully booked.

"Arthur's Day"

We are quite proud of the fact that we support Irish artisanal products from the length and breadth of the country. From Kanturk sausages to Lisburn ale, we try to source the best products made on this island and give them a platform on which they can stand. We choose each ingredient on our menu very carefully.

My personal crusade is the promotion of Irish micro brewing, and as such have lined the pub with as many taps as I can fit, never mind the countless bottles. LMG holds products from each of the micro-breweries that contact us. I am a soft target! If someone calls me and says they have a new beer or even a variation on an old beer I commit to pallets of the stuff without even blinking! Andy from Breweyed Brewery drove from Offaly in his mate's Landrover with a cabin full to the brim with bottles of Pale Ale and Lager, a new offering to the Dublin market. Sheepishly wandering in with a sample and a optimistic glint in his eye, he asked if we would take a case of each from him. I tasted it, bought the lot, handed a cheque over, and immediately matched it with the whiting on our menu! Huzzah!

To me it meant that Breweyed Brewing had a couple of euro in their pocket to invest in the next batch of brewing, but also that they knew there was a market out there for what they were investing in. In turn, I was able to match an Irish beer with a dish previously matched with the imported Fruh and our customers got to taste a new beer. We got such positive feedback from our customers about their Lager that we committed to putting it on tap, where it is still available and selling really well.

At LMG we support Irish micro brewing. We believe that by supporting irish micro brewing we are supporting families, communities and the promotion of artisan products. While the first beer poured, bought and paid for in our pub was Or from Trouble Brewing, the first beer we had pouring was a keg of Belfast Blonde donated by CWI Drinks as a thank-you to the friends and family that worked so hard on getting us open. Everything from painting to sewing to pulling thumbtacks out of the wall with a blunted butterknife was rewarded with a pint of this fine example of Irish micro brewing. In fact, it was harder to find a clean glass at that stage then the rewards of your work, such was the intensity of the labour that was being carried out!

Obviously, these are all new products so the best way to encourage people to try them is to give them a taste. If we get something new in on draught, you get to taste it to see if you like it. There’s no point trying to promote something to someone if they don’t like the taste of it! What’s the point in a bank of taps all pouring the same beer? Thanks to the men and women of Irish micro brewing, the diversity of choice that is currently available is such that I am always able to find an Irish beer to suit each and every beer drinker that walks in my doors, and most other people too! So this coming Thursday, 22nd September, as every day we celebrate diversity, ingenuity and the courage that it takes to set up a micro-brewery in the face of what is a market full of homogenous beers.

Arthur Guinness set up a micro-brewery in Leixlip in 1755. In 1759 he took the bold step of securing the St James Gate site. 10 years later (1769) he exported his first product to the UK. It wasn’t till 1799 that the brewery concentrated on the production of porter that was to become globally recognised as best in class. Arthur Guinness lived only 4 more years.

For 48 years Arthur Guinness took chances on brewing beers to the highest possible standards before he ultimately found something that struck the imagination of the people, and only then it was because porter and stouts were becoming very popular at the time. While we don't stock the draught beer that carries Arthur Guinness's name, it is this kind of tenacious attitude that the Irish microbrewing industry of today has in spades and can be proud of. We are proud to be associated with them and supply their products.

In recognition of all the hard work that Irish micro-breweries, and the people behind them, champion, we at Mulligans will be celebrating ‘Arthur’s Day’ by offering all of our Irish microbrewed draught beer at 4 euro a pint all day on the 22nd September. Worth waiting for.

Posted by Colin (@thebeercellar)

Park (ing) Day

We will have new neighbours for the day tomorrow... In two parking spots on Manor Street, the good folk of Lifeline are transforming a little corner of Manor Street into a park for the day. Inspired by recent winds, their theme is 'Windfall': bring along any excess crops you have and share, swap and be inspired! More details below, or find them on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/groups/201267119929061/ or Twitter: www.twitter.com/parkingdaydub


Dublin’s first Park(ing) Day is happening this Friday 16th September from 10am to 4pm at various locations around the city.

Park(ing) Day transforms on-street car parking spaces into public open spaces for one day. Car parking spaces around the city – from Arbour Hill to Portobello and right through the city centre – will be converted into temporary public parks.

The purpose is to create awareness of sustainable travel and the need for more public open space in urban areas. It aims to promote healthy cities by engaging with the public through temporary art.

The event has become a global phenomenon since it started in San Francisco just a few years ago, with over 180 cities now taking part.

Information about Park(ing) Day world-wide is online at www.parkingday.org

The first Dublin Park(ing) Day event is supported by Dublin City Council and the LifeLine Project. It is part of EU Mobility Week, a series of events promoting better mobility.

For more information about Dublin’s first Park(ing) Day event contact David O’Connor (086-8546401), Stéphanie Fy (087-9214479) or email us on dublinparkingday@gmail.com