The Salt House, a Craft Beer Mecca in Galway

October 1st, afternoon and later in the evening.

The Salt House in Galway: 23 taps, 1 cask, 180+ bottles! Sounds like a decent selection (and that’s not counting the ‘Tap Takeover’ by White Hag that was upcoming that evening).

It was dead quiet when we walked in at three in the afternoon. Although the door was open, there wasn’t a single person inside, not even a bartender. After some calling out the bartender appeared.
He was worth waiting for. While most of the pubs in Ireland are owned by Guinness or its fellow large competitors, this pub was owned by Galway Bay Brewing, the largest of the craft beer brewers in Ireland and interested in promoting ALL craft beers. These were a few of their regular taps with the Full Sail IPA and the Goodbye Blue Monday both excellent. (We had previously been in another Galway Bay pub in Dublin called The Black Sheep where we went for a full preview of their excellent craft beers.)
Being Ireland there was a huge collection of stouts, not something we normally drink. He gave us a sample of this coffee-infused stout and I was amazed at the taste – it’s from the US meaning that we can nip down to the states and buy a couple.
We stayed there until 5ish and by this time another couple of customers arrived. All they offered in the way of food were potato chips (oops ‘crisps’) in unique Irish flavours: Dubliner Irish Cheese & Onion, Roast Beef & Irish Stout, Atlantic Sea Salt & Irish Cider Vinegar. Although I was intrigued by the flavours we were too hungry for just crisps. No problem. The other customers chimed in with their favourite restaurants nearby which was ‘the up and coming’ part of town.
After a stroll and dinner we came back for the White Hag Tap Takeover which promised to be quite the evening event.
White Hag Coffee Stout tasting. The White Hag flight. This is the one that made it home — but it didn’t last long after that!Artsy taps in the Salthouse in Galway, Ireland, run through the photo app Stackables.In between visits to this pub we searched for some hidden 11th century icons that the host in the Fishing Museum had told us about.