Water & Soil

Cork sits on the River Lee, which splits the city into two arms that converge on an island at its center. Murphy's even carried the spring opposite in its name, the Lady's Well. Looking up from the river, you see the hills where rain seeps down and re-emerges as springs. The Lady's Well Brewery stood on just such a slope, and the name still recalls it today.

Whether the spring ever actually supplied the brewing water is beside the point for the beer itself. What matters is what's dissolved in the water. Lime and carbonate make water alkaline, and that suits dark malts well, since the roasted compounds acidify the mash and balance things out.

That's why stout is associated with cities like Dublin and London, whose water is rich in carbonate. This principle explains why pale beer and stout developed in different places.

A modern brewery doesn't rely on whatever comes out of the tap anyway. It strips out salts, adds others, and dials in the hardness like a recipe. The old claim that water makes the style held true in the 19th century, but no longer applies to the plant on Leitrim Street.

Climate plays a smaller role here than it does in Franconia. Ireland has mild, damp winters and cool summers, and the Atlantic keeps temperatures steady. Stout doesn't need a rock cellar; it isn't cold-stored for months. The brewery's cold room takes the place of the cellar once the beer goes into casks and kegs. With Murphy's Irish Stout and Beamish, the beer goes into the cask after fermentation and a short conditioning period — long cellar-aging isn't part of this style.