About This Beer
Trouble Brewing Pull The Smiles Inside is a 4.8% Munich Dunkel Lager brewed in Kill, Co. Kildare, and the story behind the beer is almost as interesting as what's inside the can.
Pull The Smiles Inside began as a homebrew recipe created by Dan McGee. McGee entered his Dunkel into the National Homebrewing Competition, where the recipe proved successful. Rather than remaining a competition-winning homebrew, it was subsequently given the opportunity to make the considerable jump to commercial production.
Trouble Brewing took McGee's winning recipe and scaled it up for production at its Kildare brewery, releasing Pull The Smiles Inside as a limited-edition beer in 44cl cans and on draught.
It's a great example of the connection between homebrewing and professional craft beer. Scaling a homebrew recipe isn't simply a case of multiplying the ingredients: brewhouse efficiency, fermentation, equipment and volume all change considerably at commercial scale. The challenge is preserving the qualities that made the original recipe successful while producing it on professional brewing equipment.
The resulting beer is unmistakably malt-led. Pull The Smiles Inside delivers flavours of bourbon biscuit, chocolate and roasted grain, with enough body to give those darker flavours substance while remaining remarkably approachable at 4.8% ABV.
It's also a relatively unusual style to find coming from an Irish independent brewery. IPA, pale ale and stout may dominate much of the modern Irish craft beer landscape, but Pull The Smiles Inside looks instead towards one of Bavaria's traditional dark lager styles.
For lager drinkers, it demonstrates just how rich and malt-forward lager can be. For stout and porter drinkers, it offers familiar chocolate, biscuit and roasted flavours in a cleaner and distinctly different format.
The unusual background of the beer also makes Pull The Smiles Inside particularly worth seeking out: this isn't simply Trouble Brewing's interpretation of a Munich Dunkel. It's the commercial version of an award-winning homebrew.
Tasting Notes
- Appearance: Deep brown with the dark, inviting appearance characteristic of a Munich Dunkel.
- Aroma: Toasted and roasted malt with biscuit and chocolate character.
- Taste: Bourbon biscuit leads into chocolate, roasted grain and rich toasted malt, with the malt remaining firmly ahead of the hops.
- Mouthfeel: Full and satisfyingly chewy for a 4.8% lager, while retaining good drinkability.
- Finish: Clean and malt-led, with lingering biscuit, chocolate and roasted-grain flavours.
About the Brewery
Trouble Brewing is an independent Irish craft brewery based in Kill, Co. Kildare.
The brewery was founded by friends Thomas Prior, Stephen Clinch and Paul O'Connor after becoming frustrated with the lack of beer variety they encountered in Irish pubs. Appropriately enough given the origins of Pull The Smiles Inside, homebrewing was part of Trouble Brewing's own beginnings: the idea of starting the brewery developed over bottles of Thomas's homebrew.
Trouble Brewing initially established its brewery in Allenwood, Co. Kildare, before later moving to a larger production facility in Kill.
Over the years, Trouble has brewed everything from approachable pale ales and lagers to porters, IPAs and more experimental limited releases. Pull The Smiles Inside demonstrates another side of that approach, turning the attention away from intense hop character and towards the malt complexity of a traditional European lager style.
Its homebrew competition origins make it particularly appropriate for Trouble, connecting the brewery's own homebrewing roots with a new generation of Irish homebrewers.
Pull The Smiles Inside joins an increasingly diverse selection of independently produced Irish craft beer available online from TheCru.ie.
Food Pairings
The rich malt character of a Munich Dunkel makes Pull The Smiles Inside particularly good alongside food with roasted, toasted or caramelised flavours.
German-style sausages are a natural match. Try it with bratwurst, mustard and fried onions, where the savoury meat and caramelised onion complement the beer's bourbon biscuit and toasted malt flavours.
Roast pork is another excellent pairing, particularly with crisp crackling. Burgers, beef stew and roast chicken also work well, while the relatively moderate 4.8% ABV means the beer doesn't overpower the food.
For a vegetarian pairing, try grilled mushrooms or roasted root vegetables. Their earthy and caramelised flavours work naturally with the darker malt.
Nutty cheeses such as Gruyère, Emmental or aged Gouda are also worth trying, with their savoury character complementing the beer's biscuit and chocolate notes.
Try More Like This
Pull The Smiles Inside is a particularly interesting place to start if your idea of lager has traditionally meant something pale and light. Munich Dunkel demonstrates that lager can be dark, richly malty and full of flavour while still retaining the clean fermentation associated with the wider lager family.
Explore our Lager, Pilsner & Helles range for more traditional and modern lager styles.
If you're interested in what independent breweries closer to home are producing, our Irish craft beer collection brings together beers from breweries around Ireland.
You can also browse the complete Craft Beer & Craft Cider range for Irish and international releases across lager, IPA, stout, sour beer, Belgian styles and more.
Shop the best of craft beer Ireland and from around the world online with TheCru.ie or in our Dublin craft beer store, Carry Out Tyrrelstown in Dublin 15.