St. Patrick’s Day, like Cinco de Mayo and Oktoberfest, is one of those annual celebrations for which Americans from coast to coast put aside our differences and come together to celebrate a foreign culture the only way we know how: via a collection of tenuously relevant and borderline-offensive stereotypes. Green beer and leprechauns? Honestly.
There’s no need to bother with artificially colored beer when Ireland’s brewing heritage has so much to offer. Irish stout is without a doubt the Emerald Isle’s most famous zymurgical export, and Craft Beer & Brewing has some fantastic Irish stout recipes in our growing library of homebrew recipes, including Ye Olde Moustachio and O’Davey Irish Stout. But another Irish style is a surefire crowd pleaser and among the easiest beers out there to brew: Irish red ale.
The term Irish red ale (whose abbreviation is conveniently the same as that of the Irish Republican Army) isn’t really known in Ireland itself. Smithwick’s and Kilkenny are almost as ubiquitous as Guinness Draught is in the Republic, while Caffrey’s enjoys a bit of a following in the North. These products are simply known by name, however, not by any particular style. At best they’re simply called “Irish ale.”