O’Shea’s Traditional Irish Stout
Brewed by Carlow Brewing Company
Style: Irish Stout
Bagenalstown, Co. Carlow, Ireland
Located in Bagenalstown, County Carlow, in the south-east of Ireland, the Carlow Brewing Company, founded by the O’Hara family in 1996, is one of the largest and most successful craft breweries in Ireland. It is more popularly known as O’Hara’s Brewing Company after the family name that still runs the business today.
After seeing the wide success of the craft beer revolution in the United States and Continental Europe, Seamus O’Hara, along with his brother Eamon, decided to produce Irish craft beers, at first to export, and later, to Ireland after it took the natives to come round to the idea of anything but macro beers.
They produce a wide variety of exciting and adventurous beers. From the regular Red Ales, IPA’s, Stouts, to beers that perhaps are a bit of a rarity to Irish drinkers……Smoked Ales, Golden Ales, and Celtic versions of Wheat Beers!!
I have tasted O’Hara’s well known Irish Red Traditional Ale, a beer that many reviewers rant and rave about, but alas I thought was very disappointing and slightly overrated.
Review: 50cl brown bottle of O’Shea’s Irish Stout: 4.5% vol.
Incase you are confused, the O’Shea brand is made by the Carlow Brewing company for the Aldi cheap discount store, think of it as the ugly sister to the O’Hara’s beers!
Coming in a nice big brown bottle with an interesting logo of a swan, pretty lettering of “O’Shea’s” which looks nice. “Craft brewed In Ireland”
On pour I get the, as expected, stout look of a pitch black appearance, creamy with a tannish frothy head. It is not a Guinness head but not bad all the same.
Some good lacing. Overall a good looking stout.
The aroma is quite light, getting the coffee and roasted malts notes with hints of toffee, but overall it is all disappointedly light on the nose.
On the taste, found it quite strong in the hops, a very bitter unpleasant taste for me.
In addition, I got a very strong taste of coffee and dark chocolate. too strong, also a bit too creamy. It has all the characteristics you need for a good stout, but its seems they overdid it a little with them.
Initial mouthfuls were a turnoff, not nice at all, more a bad IPA than a stout. Very hard to stomach really, disgusting even.
Taste got slightly better in the second bottle, with less lingering bitterness, but less taste too!
It can be manageable to sip slowly, but it’s a bit bland with no exciting flavours and those hops are a killer on the taste buds. Overall it never felt like a stout.
Also found it to be quite strong in the alcohol, a bit boozy, gave me a slight head the next day, even if it was just 4.5% vol…….
Not much info on this beer online, needless to say that’s the way they like it in cheap discount beer land, just buy the fucker and dont worry about it. 
Aroma is pretty shit, in fact it smells a bit like shit, had the aroma of a fart! Lagery smell, and very metallic on the nose. Not great!
Founded in 2010 in Kill, a small town in Kildare. Trouble Brewing have introduced some new and exciting craft brews into the Irish market and beyond. 
Can be found on tap at certain selected places around the country but I got it in the bottle from Lidl, the German supermarket discount chain. 
Has all the typical IPA style characteristics checked and mastered. Citrus and tropical fruits, caramel and sweet malts all easy to find.
He set up the company Alltech in his garage in 1980 while living in Kentucky for work purposes. Lyons used his fermentation expertise to helping brewers. He then moved into agri business, more particularly, animal feed and animal nutrition. Overtime Alltech has become one of the fastest growing companies in the global animal health industry, continually making a tidy profit year in year out, and with an annual turnover of $1.6 billion. Not bad for the fella who got a 10,000 Dollar loan to start off in his garage!
With three new breweries under construction in the United States, and a major investment in a new distillery, called Pearse Lyons Distillery in the heart of the Dublin, at the former St James Church where his grandfather is buried, Lyons was set to continue the family history. They also opened a new brewery at the historic site of the old MacArdle Moore Brewery in Dundalk, which will also incorporate the relocation of the Station Works Brewery in Newry, acquired by the company in 2015. 
A real IPA type aroma, very nice, spot on with the smell. Getting the citrus, and other fruits and the malts, lovely. 