The good stuff, and no bubbles needed. A glass of Bronze Age beer.

Declan Moore, of the Moore Group, was kind enough to invite me out to Headfest 08 a couple of weeks ago. I mentioned before that Declan, and fellow archaelogist Billy Quin, proposed a theory of Bronze Age beer making in Ireland. Headfest 08 (in the back of Billy’s cottage out in Headford) would be a chance to see the brewing in action, and more importantly, a chance to taste the beer itself.

These ladies cooked like angels.

Alas, despite a sunny morning, the afternoon became a monsoon, and the beermaking never happened. It didn’t matter because the lads had made a batch in July, and there was plenty of it. I have to say that they know how to throw a party, and the guest have to be friendliest bunch of people I’ve come across in a long time.

The beer is quite nice actually, and a reminder that the fizzed-up overchilled swill served up in most pubs isn’t actually what beer is about. I forgot to ask what volume of alcohol is in it , but i suspect it is fairly low. They had added bog myrtle and other flowers to the mix, and one could actually taste and smell the bouquet from the beer (they had barrels of Guinness and Galway Hooker as well, for non-believers).

Lamb on a spit, and damned tasty too.

I have to mention the food – (sheep lovers, turn away now). There was a lamb on a spit cooking slowly (and being eaten quickly) and rack of lamb on a barbecue oven which quite literally melted in the mouth. Simply Outstanding. The rain didn’t deter anyone (there were a bunch of marquees about the garden) and by the time I left, the musicians were limbering up for the night shift.

I bet this family of swallows couldn’t wait to get to Africa, as they listened to the rain hammering off the roof above them.

I took plenty of pictures but won’t put up a gallery for now, if only to protect the contestants of the hilarious Lovely Girls competition.

Can’t wait for Headfest 09.

The sticky outreached blossom of a round-leaf sundew [Drúichtín Móna] might seem inviting to a passing fly but it’s not a mistake that a insect gets to make twice.

The Irish Peatland Conservation Council describes it thus

Sundews have spoon-shaped leaves which are covered with up to 200 pin-shaped red “tentacles” (or stalked glands) which respond to touch. The head of each gland is covered with a mucilaginous secretion which is acidic and enzymatic and does not evaporate. Insects may mistake the glistening leaves for nectar or may be caught because they blunder onto the leaves by chance.

Once a fly lands on, and gets stuck on, one of the leaves (which are each about 1cm wide) , the tentacles take a few minutes to curl around it. Digesting it can take a day.

As unappetising as dissolved insects might sound, the sundew plant was once used to brew an aphrodisiac drink called rosa solis - it was also used as a hair dye, so it was surely an ingredient that would put hair on your chest. According to Niall Mac Coitir’s wonderful “Irish Wild Plants – Myths, Legends and Folklore“, sundew boiled in asses’ milk was used to cure whooping cough (you’d need a stiff drink just to go out to milk the donkey in the first place).

A far more palatable-sounding drink is the Bronze Age brew that Galway-based archaeologists Declan Moore and Billy Quinn propose might have been brewed in Ireland. They describe the brew (and the theory behind it) here but the video is more fun. The good news, if you are in the capital,  is that they will be giving out more samples of it this week in UCD in Dublin at an archaelogical conference.

Camera = Canon EOS 5D, lens = Sigma 180mm macro, ISO=400, aperture=f20, speed = 1/80, Manfrotto tripod & pistol grip head.