IT’S the countdown to St Patrick’s Day (March 17), which this year falls on a Saturday, giving you an entire day of rest to recover from your emerald excesses. Especially if you give Mass a miss. Sure, in that ginger wig and lop-sided Guinness hat you’d look an eejit there, anyway.
We at ToM aim to celebrate Ireland’s big day less exuberantly. With oysters and a drop of the black stuff made by the best of Ireland’s new wave craft brewers. Beer importers Cave Direct’s Manchester depot are not just supplying the city’s bars with White Hag Nitro Dry Irish Stout from Sligo; they are also taking orders for the Wild Atlantic Oyster Company’s finest.
We’ll alert ToM readers to whichever bars have taken them up on the offer.
Highly recommended on the back of a stout and oyster matching we did with Cave Direct in their Unit 101 HQ on North Western Street, a 10 minute walk from Piccadilly Station. The stout had a deep-roasted maltiness and creaminess that gave it more complexity than Guinness, while the Pacific Gigas oysters from beds near the brewery had a fleshy robustness and a real scent and savour of the Wild Atlantic. A perfect match. Who needs Muscadet?
