Cork's Stout and Craft-Beer Crawl

In Cork, the stout question has a different answer than the rest of the country. Dublin has Guinness. Cork has Beamish and Murphy's, two local stouts that the city has drunk and defended for generations. A beer crawl here is partly a drinking route and partly a small act of civic pride. Here is how to do it with the history in your glass.

The two stouts

Start with the heritage. Murphy's was brewed at the Lady's Well Brewery on the northside from 1856 and is the milder, slightly sweeter of the two Cork stouts. Beamish dates back even further, to a brewery founded in 1792, and is the drier, more roasted of the pair. Both are now owned by Heineken, which took over Murphy's in 1983 and which still brews Beamish in Cork after the old Beamish and Crawford site stopped brewing in 2009. Ask for either in a city-centre pub and you are drinking the local answer to the capital, which is exactly the point.

You will not tour a working stout brewery in the city the way you would a distillery, but you can drink both stouts fresh and on form in any decent Cork pub. Order a Beamish in one stop and a Murphy's in the next and decide for yourself; locals will, and they will not all agree.

The Franciscan Well

The heart of any Cork beer crawl is the Franciscan Well on the North Mall by Sunday's Well. Shane Long founded it in 1998 on the site of a 13th-century Franciscan monastery and its well, and it became the flagship of the modern Irish craft scene. It brews its own beers, pours them at the bar, serves wood-fired pizza, and has a large covered beer garden out the back that is busy in any weather. It is a short walk along the north channel of the Lee from the city centre and is the natural place to spend the middle of an afternoon.

The newer brewers

Cork's craft scene runs deeper than one brewpub. Rising Sons opened in 2014 on Cornmarket Street, in the historic Musgrave Buildings, and brews on site behind the bar; its Changeling pale ale has picked up international awards. A handful of other taprooms and craft-focused pubs have followed across the city. For dinner with a beer pairing, Elbow Lane off Oliver Plunkett Street runs its own nano-brewery alongside a smokehouse kitchen, brewing to the German purity law and serving the results with fire-cooked food.

A route that works

Begin in the city centre with a Beamish in a traditional pub to set the tone. Walk north along the quays to the Franciscan Well for a couple of its own beers and a pizza in the beer garden. Loop back toward Cornmarket Street for Rising Sons and its on-site brews. Finish with dinner at Elbow Lane, where the beer and the smokehouse come from the same room. That is a full afternoon and evening, all walkable, with the two heritage stouts and the new wave both covered.

Practical notes

Pubs and breweries change hands and opening hours move, so check that each stop is open on the day before you set out; a quick look at each venue's social media is the safest check. Cork's city centre is compact and flat, which makes a crawl easy on foot, and taxis are easy to find around St Patrick's Street if you stray uphill. Drink at a sensible pace and eat along the way; the smokehouse and the pizza oven are part of the plan, not an afterthought.