RetroReview: S0112 O'Neills

I'd be almost tempted to do a re-write of the ridiculous statement that was written on the front of the original Zanzibar in Dublin; but change my picked out line to "random beer selection and the smell of carvery"; as that's my abiding memory of every visit to O'Neills.

O'Neills is a rambling pub which always seems to smell of carvery; but has more interesting beer options than most similar pubs in Dublin. Some of this is due to it having a huge number of taps - they are not sacrificing the bland and/or common for the interesting here; they just have space for it all.

There is; or now potentially was, as I can't find the damn thing; a write-up online of a four-way stout blind taste test of Guinness, Murphys, O'Haras and Beamish performed here, being the only pub in Dublin which regularly sold all four. It's also the first place I ever had a Brewdog beer on tap - Punk IPA many recipe alterations ago, the same type I eventually got in the Brighton branch as "Original Punk" in what I now realise was already nearly a decade ago.

My most recent visit was post the blog starting, but before the revisited lists - potentially 2017 - and was a quiet, sunny, weekday early evening out in the smoking area; which does not smell of carvery.