Episode 10 of Beár Bia is live – A travelling podcast celebrating the unison of Irish food & drink. This time the duo headed to Kildare to check out the local food and drink scene.
The county of Kildare is renowned worldwide for its thriving equine industry, but more recently, its food and drink producers have taken a bigger share of the spotlight. At the invitation of Kildare Local Enterprise Office and Flavours of Kildare, Beár Bia hosts Dee Laffan and Oisin Davis pop down and check out a couple of leading lights from the county’s ever-burgeoning culinary scene.
It is well documented that St Brigid of Kildare was quite the fan of beer so as a mark of respect to the great lady herself, they decided to focus on the current breweries in her home county. Especially as some of Ireland’s best independent breweries are situated there!
Dee and Oisin recorded the episode in Farrington’s Brewery in Rathcoffey, where they also have a superb bar and restaurant with an adjoining event space. “A brilliant, all-in-one business”, according to the duo, that can even host a wedding overlooking the brewery area. Helen Mullhall from the Kildare Local Enterprise Office and the Flavours of Kildare Network opened up the conversation between everybody involved in this week’s podcast. She detailed all the great work that takes place between all the county’s producers and how the community there assists each other so well.
For their first pairing, the head chef at Farrington’s, Kuba Wlodarski, took three different beers to make a dish with the local Feighcullen Farm free-range chicken. It was brined overnight in their IPA before he made a beer batter with their stout to deep fry the chicken in and served it alongside their Auger’s Twist light lager as an excellent accompaniment. “This was truly a symphony of flavours”, and such an exciting way to celebrate their in-house beers.
Head brewer Phil Bizzell was on hand to talk Dee and Oisin through their portfolio and tell them more about their beer philosophy there.
Their second pairing came courtesy of another two excellent Kildare businesses. Bill Laukitis from Rye River Brewing Co. in Celbridge joined us. He is their head brewer and shared details of his own personal work journey from the USA and the incredible accomplishments of the whole Rye River Brewing team, now made up of 65 employees.
Ryan Lally of Grá Pizza from Celbridge and Maynooth, popped down with a pizza that the Michelin starred chef JP McMahon of Aniar collaborated with him on. It’s made with Garryhinch mushrooms, roasted potatoes from Ballymakenny, Toonsbridge mozzarella, smoked Provola from Barbavilla dairy, Achill Island sea salt, brown bread crumb and buttermilk gel. This all-Irish piece of pizza perfection was paired with the rich, smoky Nocturne Stout from Rye River Brewing. “The contrast and the intensity of flavours bounced off each other so well.”
Kildare has such an incredible array of food & drink producers. You can read more about them here.
