Kilkenny Irish Cream Ale September 19, 2019

Hello fair lads and lassies. I recently had the pleasure of visiting The Storehouse (69 W 23rd St, New York, NY 10010 (212)-243-8898) and found an interesting beer on tap: The Kilkenny Irish Cream Ale. For those of you who don't know, I LOVE red ales. Add the combination of nitrogen and CO2 and that just leaves me 🤯🤯🤯. Before I talk about the beer, I wanted to go into the history of the Kilkenny Irish Cream Ale brand.

This particular Irish ale traces has been brewed under the Kilkenny name since 1710 having been brewed by the St. Francis Abby (also written as Abbey) brewery in the town of its name sake: Kilkenny. Its roots date back even further back to the 1230's. It is believed that the recipe for the Kilkenny Irish Ale is one of the ones used by Franciscan monks that lived in the Abby in Kilkenny. The brewery, it was located on the grounds of the St. Francis' Abby, home of the Franciscan monks that were brewing beer as far back as the 13th century. It is believed that the Abby itself was built between 1231 and 1234.

In 1710, John Smithwick in partnership with duke of Ormond Richard Cole opened the brewery. If the name Smithwick looks familiar, the famed Irish ale Smithwick's was one of the main ales brewed at St. Francis Abby Brewery.  Up to its closure in 2013, it had been the oldest continuing brewery in Ireland. Since 2013, the Kilkenny Irish Cream Ale has been brewed at the St. James' Gate Brewery under the Guinness umbrella of beers.

According to the December 2016 edition of Globe Magazine:

It is served in similar manner to Guinness; fully raised with a head of 3/4 to 1" approximately. The ingredients are water, malted barley, roasted malted barley, hops and yeast. Kilkenny is a rich and creamy ale with a smooth clean taste. It is brewed from 100% Irish malt, giving it a distinctive ruby-red color.

The website BreweryDB further describes the Kilkenny Irish Cream Ale as being: similar to Smithwick's Draught; however, has less hop finish and it has a nitrogenated cream head similar to Guinness. Take a look at the pint that was poured to me by Eamonn the bartender:

So what did I think of this beautiful beer? To see what I thought of it when I drank the beer, check out SiscoVanilla Has a Kilkenny Irish Cream Ale at the Storehouse 09-15-2019 from my SiscoVanilla IG-TV channel. Clocking in at 4.3% ABV and an IBU of 29 this was a delight of a beer to drink. Creamy, filling and smooth are just three words that I would use to describe this beer. There is no bitterness to this beer whatsoever. I definitely need to go back to the Storehouse for some more of this beer. Highly recommended.

What I now need to do is to do a side by side tasting of the Smithwick's Irish Red Ale and the Kilkenny Irish Cream Ale. Anyone want to join in? Hit me up and let me know!!!

Until Then Happy Drinking,
SiscoVanilla
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