As experienced beer travellers will know, Ireland isn't exactly the best place in the world to go for diversity in beer. Travelling pub to pub across the land, the same tap turn up again and again and repetition becomes the standard.

     That all changes, however, at a little pub located crossroads of a town called Inagh. The pub is Biddy Early, which for ten years has held the title of Ireland's first brewpub of the modern era.

     They brew three year-round ales at Biddy Early - a fairly conventional pilsner called Blonde Biddy, the highly roasty stout known as Black Biddy, and the ale I chose as the TOTM for August, Red Biddy.

     Flavoured with heather, bog myrtle and a local tree berry called fraothogs, Red Biddy is the kind of ale that slowly grows on a person. While my first taste of the deep reddish-copper brew did little to overwhelm me, each sniff of its toffee-ish, almost buttered rum-like aroma and each sip of its malty-sweet, herbal body served to further entrance me. By the time I finished my pint of the dry-finishing, mildly bitter brew, Red Biddy had enchanted me into wanting to order another. Which is exactly what I did.

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