‘Ireland is not a country that was reared on barbecue. My first cooking-on-fire experience was holding a stick-skewered sausage over the dying flames of a Halloween bonfire. To this day, I’m still surprised that the half raw, half charred, fully-seasoned-with ash sausage – obviously I dropped it – didn’t kill me and my siblings. Or that we weren’t choked by the theoretically “baked” potatoes that we had buried underneath the embers.
It wasn’t an altogether successful culinary event, but it felt like magic. We sat on blocks of wood pulled around the perimeter of the fire, talking and laughing as we scorched faces and fingers, with the fun being more in the cooking rather than the eating.
That’s a while ago now, and while the fun is still in the cooking, especially if you out source it to the nearest barbecue nerd (there’s one, or several, in every family and friend group), my food standards are much higher.
I want to enjoy the meal and not just survive it.
I’m not the only one, either. I have a cousin who installed her barbecue on the footpath outside her kitchen overhang so that she could use it as an extra, year-round cooker, and several friends have cooked their Christmas turkeys in ceramic egg-shaped barbecues.
Glorious summer
But it wasn’t until the glorious summer of 2014, when the first Big Grill BBQ & Food Festival took over Dublin’s Herbert Park, that this food world really arrived in Ireland.
The Big Grill had a line up of Irish and international chefs bringing proper barbecue to D4 – no gas, but lots of slow cooking, pulled meats and, most importantly, beers and cider from Irish microbreweries and cider makers.
Your only previous experience of beer and barbecue may have been drinking a bottle of something boring while holding an umbrella over the burgers that you were desperately trying to cook on a disposable foil tray barbecue (or maybe that was just me?). The Big Grill was a move from that old black-and-white to technicolour barbecue, with the colours and flavours turned right up to 11.
To see how times have changed, take a look at the just-published How to BBQ Everything (Edbury Press, €29.99) by Northern Irish content creator Jim Moore, who uses the grill to cook dishes ranging from a Philly cheese steak tear and share puff pastry wheel to Yorkshire puddings and even a pitmaster’s pasta pie.
When it comes to picking a drink to have alongside your plate of fire-roasted food, you could stick with an imported glass of wine or anonymous pint, but why do that when there’s a multiplicity of delicious local options to explore?
We sat on blocks of wood pulled around the perimeter of the fire,
talking and laughing as we scorched faces and fingers, with the fun being more in the cooking rather than the eating
The best way to do this is by having a chat with the person who runs your local off-licence. Supermarkets, too, often have someone who can talk to you about beer. Tell them what you’re planning, what kind of food you’re serving and ask for recommendations. They know what’s locally produced, what’s Irish, what’s available and what’s popular.
They can steer you away from an accidental purchase of the higher ABV (alcohol by volume) beers – there’s a time and a place for those, but when the sun is hot and high you don’t want to be getting stuck into an eight-percenter.
Advice costs nothing – shout out to Colm Moran of Mitchelstown’s Carry Out Off-Licence for the steers and the chat – and you get to learn a little about the beers so that you can, ahem, impress your guests.
Yes, I admit it, I will nerd out about beers – but you don’t have to. Or you could be oh-so-casual about it and just drop in a comment here and there.
Playful beers
For a sunny day barbecue, it’s good to pick a mixture of ABVs and flavours.
Have a no-alcohol or low-alcohol option for anyone who doesn’t want to be stuck drinking sparkling water.
A sessionable IPA or lager coming in at 4.5% ABV or less – something light, refreshing and drinkable over a prolonged period of time – is always a good idea.
And then it’s always good to be a little playful, introducing something different but still not too high in alcohol, to finish off the evening.
May your barbecue be hot, your beers be cold and the sun continue to shine for this summer of ‘26.
3 beers to pair with your food
1. Tacos: Fierce Mild Non-Alcoholic Extra Pale Ale from Fierce Mild. <.5% ABV, €2.95 / 330ml bottle
Fierce Mild Non-Alcoholic Extra Pale Ale from Fierce Mild.
Lots of hoppy citrus and enough depth of flavour to believe its non-alcoholic roots means this XPA is a great match for fresh Mexican flavours. The winner of the 2026 Irish Food Writers’ Guild Irish Drink Award, Fierce Mild is a simple sipper that won’t overwhelm.
2. BBQ-focused meals: Hop On Session IPA from Hope
Brewery. 4.3% ABV, €3.99 / 330ml can
Hop On Session IPA from Hope Brewery.
With lots of hops, including Citra, El Dorado and Azacca, but still coming in at a very sessionable 4.3% ABV, Hop On is able to brighten the flavours of planked Goatsbridge trout, cut through marinated beef short ribs recipe available online, or play happily with a Carolina-style BBQ chicken.
3. Grilled peaches with mascarpone semifreddo: Old Smoke Irish Porter from Whitefield Brewery. 5.4% ABV, €4.20 / 500ml bottle.
Old Smoke Irish Porter from Whitefield Brewery.
As the sun dips over the horizon, I like to bring out the slightly higher ABV beers and we’re going a little darker with this lightly smoked porter. It makes for a lovely savoury-sweet pairing with the peaches, picking up on their smoky flavour, and complementing the richness of the mascarpone semifreddo.
Read more
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Celebrating Irish beer
‘Ireland is not a country that was reared on barbecue. My first cooking-on-fire experience was holding a stick-skewered sausage over the dying flames of a Halloween bonfire. To this day, I’m still surprised that the half raw, half charred, fully-seasoned-with ash sausage – obviously I dropped it – didn’t kill me and my siblings. Or that we weren’t choked by the theoretically “baked” potatoes that we had buried underneath the embers.
It wasn’t an altogether successful culinary event, but it felt like magic. We sat on blocks of wood pulled around the perimeter of the fire, talking and laughing as we scorched faces and fingers, with the fun being more in the cooking rather than the eating.
That’s a while ago now, and while the fun is still in the cooking, especially if you out source it to the nearest barbecue nerd (there’s one, or several, in every family and friend group), my food standards are much higher.
I want to enjoy the meal and not just survive it.
I’m not the only one, either. I have a cousin who installed her barbecue on the footpath outside her kitchen overhang so that she could use it as an extra, year-round cooker, and several friends have cooked their Christmas turkeys in ceramic egg-shaped barbecues.
Glorious summer
But it wasn’t until the glorious summer of 2014, when the first Big Grill BBQ & Food Festival took over Dublin’s Herbert Park, that this food world really arrived in Ireland.
The Big Grill had a line up of Irish and international chefs bringing proper barbecue to D4 – no gas, but lots of slow cooking, pulled meats and, most importantly, beers and cider from Irish microbreweries and cider makers.
Your only previous experience of beer and barbecue may have been drinking a bottle of something boring while holding an umbrella over the burgers that you were desperately trying to cook on a disposable foil tray barbecue (or maybe that was just me?). The Big Grill was a move from that old black-and-white to technicolour barbecue, with the colours and flavours turned right up to 11.
To see how times have changed, take a look at the just-published How to BBQ Everything (Edbury Press, €29.99) by Northern Irish content creator Jim Moore, who uses the grill to cook dishes ranging from a Philly cheese steak tear and share puff pastry wheel to Yorkshire puddings and even a pitmaster’s pasta pie.
When it comes to picking a drink to have alongside your plate of fire-roasted food, you could stick with an imported glass of wine or anonymous pint, but why do that when there’s a multiplicity of delicious local options to explore?
We sat on blocks of wood pulled around the perimeter of the fire,
talking and laughing as we scorched faces and fingers, with the fun being more in the cooking rather than the eating
The best way to do this is by having a chat with the person who runs your local off-licence. Supermarkets, too, often have someone who can talk to you about beer. Tell them what you’re planning, what kind of food you’re serving and ask for recommendations. They know what’s locally produced, what’s Irish, what’s available and what’s popular.
They can steer you away from an accidental purchase of the higher ABV (alcohol by volume) beers – there’s a time and a place for those, but when the sun is hot and high you don’t want to be getting stuck into an eight-percenter.
Advice costs nothing – shout out to Colm Moran of Mitchelstown’s Carry Out Off-Licence for the steers and the chat – and you get to learn a little about the beers so that you can, ahem, impress your guests.
Yes, I admit it, I will nerd out about beers – but you don’t have to. Or you could be oh-so-casual about it and just drop in a comment here and there.
Playful beers
For a sunny day barbecue, it’s good to pick a mixture of ABVs and flavours.
Have a no-alcohol or low-alcohol option for anyone who doesn’t want to be stuck drinking sparkling water.
A sessionable IPA or lager coming in at 4.5% ABV or less – something light, refreshing and drinkable over a prolonged period of time – is always a good idea.
And then it’s always good to be a little playful, introducing something different but still not too high in alcohol, to finish off the evening.
May your barbecue be hot, your beers be cold and the sun continue to shine for this summer of ‘26.
3 beers to pair with your food
1. Tacos: Fierce Mild Non-Alcoholic Extra Pale Ale from Fierce Mild. <.5% ABV, €2.95 / 330ml bottle
Fierce Mild Non-Alcoholic Extra Pale Ale from Fierce Mild.
Lots of hoppy citrus and enough depth of flavour to believe its non-alcoholic roots means this XPA is a great match for fresh Mexican flavours. The winner of the 2026 Irish Food Writers’ Guild Irish Drink Award, Fierce Mild is a simple sipper that won’t overwhelm.
2. BBQ-focused meals: Hop On Session IPA from Hope
Brewery. 4.3% ABV, €3.99 / 330ml can
Hop On Session IPA from Hope Brewery.
With lots of hops, including Citra, El Dorado and Azacca, but still coming in at a very sessionable 4.3% ABV, Hop On is able to brighten the flavours of planked Goatsbridge trout, cut through marinated beef short ribs recipe available online, or play happily with a Carolina-style BBQ chicken.
3. Grilled peaches with mascarpone semifreddo: Old Smoke Irish Porter from Whitefield Brewery. 5.4% ABV, €4.20 / 500ml bottle.
Old Smoke Irish Porter from Whitefield Brewery.
As the sun dips over the horizon, I like to bring out the slightly higher ABV beers and we’re going a little darker with this lightly smoked porter. It makes for a lovely savoury-sweet pairing with the peaches, picking up on their smoky flavour, and complementing the richness of the mascarpone semifreddo.
Read more
Caroline Hennessy: 'building sweet gingerbread memories'
Celebrating Irish beer
SHARING OPTIONS