Great Kildare restaurants and bars explored on new Irish food and drinks podcast
Dee Laffan and Oisin Davis are showcasing and celebrating the pairing of Irish food with Irish drinks through their travelling podcast Beár Bia
The county of Kildare is renowned the world over for its thriving equine industry but more recently, its food & drink producers have taken a bigger share of the spotlight. At the invitation of Kildare Local Enterprise Office and Flavours of Kildare, the Beár Bia podcast popped down to check out a couple of leading lights from the county's ever burgeoning culinary scene.
Dee Laffan and Oisin Davis want to showcase and celebrate the pairing of Irish food with Irish drinks through their brand new travelling podcast Beár Bia. Translated to English as Food Bar, Beár Bia's key mission statement is that local foods taste best when enjoyed with local drinks and Ireland is no exception.
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, the lads decided to focus on the current breweries in her home county. Especially as some of Ireland's best independent breweries are situated there.
The Kildare episode was recorded in Farrington's Brewery in Rathcoffey who also have a superb bar and restaurant with an adjoining event space. A brilliant, all in one business 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. 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 accompaniment.
Head brewer Phil Bizzell was on hand to talk everyone through their portfolio and explain more about their beer philosophy there.
The second pairing came courtesy of another two excellent Kildare businesses. Bill Laukitis from Rye River Brewing Co in Celbridge joined the hosts. Laukitis 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.
Kildare has such an incredible array of food & drink producers there now. You can read more about them here in this link. To join the Flavours of Kildare Network, hit this link here.