The Menu: What's big for food in the week ahead?

RAISE A GLASS

While the recent Storm Emma may not have been the Armageddon initially predicted, it did more than enough damage to the roof of Cork’s Franciscan Well to cause the postponement of their justly renowned Easter craft beer festival.

While many still tend to think of craft beer as a recent phenomenon, a draught in which hipster millennials bathe elaborate moustaches, that this was to be the 19th such festival illustrates not only the longevity of the Irish craft beer sector but also Fran Well’s role at the very heart of it. Thankfully, though it has now been rescheduled (April 29-May 1), with 16 brewers including YellowBelly, Hope, Trouble offering a choice of craft beers from 50 taps, along with three distillers.

Festival debutants Hope Brewery (Dublin), Wicklow Wolf and Lough Gill (Sligo) join a posse of ‘veterans’ including Rising Sons, YellowBelly, Trouble Brewing and West Cork Brewing. In addition to splendid Pompeii Pizza, baked on site all day long, the Fran Well have invited two up-and-coming outfits, Orchid Collective and Band Anna, to do their tuneful thing on Saturday and Sunday.

(Free admission, www.franciscanwellbrewery.com)

TAKE A WALK

Some of The Menu’s most favourite sipping of recent years has been derived from the vineyards of his beloved Spain so he looks forward greatly to Spanish Wine Week (April 23-29) with multiple events running throughout the country, most especially as it combines both food and wine.

Irrepressible chef/restaurateur Niall Sabongi leads a walking tour to his three restaurants, Klaw Temple Bar, Klaw Poké and The Seafood Café, dishes paired with wines from Rías Baxias, while Rafael Salazar, of Vinostito, leads a tasting of ‘Atlantic vs Mediterranean’ in L’Atitude 51, with tasty tapas to match. Spanish wine dinners and lunches take place in Cliff House Hotel, Cliff Townhouse, No.1 Pery Square, The Twelve, No.25 Fitzwilliam Place and Kasbah Wine Bar.

(www.spanishwineweek.ie).

Taste Kerry launch their Kerry Seafood Resource at an industry-only event (April 26) at IT Tralee with a detailed resource pack for industry professionals. There will be demos and talks on the day from top chefs including a great Menu favourite, Dingle’s Martin Bealin (Global Village) along with Tom Flavin (Limerick Strand Hotel) and Eddie Atwell (St Kyran’s Hotel, Virginia)

TODAY’S SPECIAL

The Menu pulled what might have been a cruel stunt this week were it not for the joyous outcome, as he substituted Exploding Tree’s Cocoa Husk Tea in the pot for the more usual Barry’s enjoyed daily by a close comrade.

Of course, The Menu’s ruse was uncovered ere before said comrade ever took so much as a sip for the sensory pleasures of this splendid potion are apparent as soon as a body commences pouring, it’s fruity chocolate aromas anointing the nostrils like incense.

Exploding Tree is, of course, an ‘alter ego’ of Alison Roberts’ Clonakilty Chocolate Factory, one of Ireland’s original bean-to-bar manufacturers and her Cocoa Husk Tea is derived from one of the by-products of the process. It is no afterthought, though, on the palate, the class of drink to draw a smile with every sip: bright, perky and full of dark stone-fruit flavours to add vibrancy to those husky cocoa notes, all riding a glorious natural sweetness, and it has The Menu currently burning the midnight oil in his lab as he seeks to expand further its culinary potential, a class of cocoa husk sorbet currently top of his agenda.

There is no gainsaying the properties of this astonishing brew, laden as it is with essential nutrients (including manganese, iron, zinc), Vitamin E, the alkaloid, Theobromine and an Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity six times that of green tea!

www.explodingtree.com