BEÁR BIA TRAVELLING PODCAST RETURNS FOR THIRD SEASON AT O'DONOGHUE'S PUB

With new sponsors Dojo, Dee Laffan & Oisín Davis are joined in O'Donoghue's Merrion Row by food & drink writer Aoife Carrigy, Olly Nolan of Olly's Farm and Niall Sabongi of The Seafood Café.

After recording in 23 different locations across 11 counties, Beár Bia is back for season 3! With its primary mission still very much fixed on hitting the road and seeking out the very best Irish food & drink pairings, the travelling podcast's two creators Dee Laffan and Oisín Davis are very much looking forward to engaging with the finest culinary producers and hospitality heroes on the island of Ireland.

They are proud to announce that Season 3 is supported by Dojo, a leading payments provider already working with restaurants, cafés and pubs across Ireland, including O’Donoghue’s, where this first episode was recorded. Dojo offers fast, reliable card payments, 70+ EPOS integrations, an app that shows you your sales in real time, a local team that knows the market, and real people on hand seven days a week.

“Irish food and drink is full of people doing what they do best, and Beár Bia puts them in the spotlight. Like many Dojo customers, they take real pride in their craft, so supporting Season 3 is a natural fit for us.” – Gary Bampton, General Manager, Dojo Ireland.

For their opening episode, guests were warmly welcomed into the upstairs shebeen of O'Donoghue's pub, Merrion Row, by bar manager Paddy Brennan. He shared a brief history of the pub and some fascinating details of how Luke Kelly himself of The Dubliners shaped this landmark institution into one of the capital's most beloved centres of traditional Irish music. To further appreciate the wonderful setting, the multiple award-winning food, drink & travel writer Aoife Carrigy picked up the conversation and spoke more broadly about Dublin pub culture and its unique history. She then went into how in previous decades, Dublin pubs did not necessarily have kitchens or employ chefs. Inner-city sustenance during Joyce's era, for instance, came either from white linen restaurants or the more rustic "eating houses." It's certainly a long cry from where we are now with Irish gastropubs like L Mulligan Grocers or The Old Spot and led us nicely into the day's pairings...

The first of which was a classic that can be enjoyed in hundreds of establishments around the island of Ireland: a pint of Guinness with a seafood pie; this particular one was from Niall Sabongi of Seafood Suppers. It featured an all-Irish medley of sustainably caught Irish fish in a beautifully cooked creamy sauce. The signature bittersweet taste of the Guinness was a great counterpoint to the pie.

Next up was another Dublin local Olly Nolan of Olly's Farm, who brought some of his amazing honey with him. It was generously drizzled on Dublin Hills Goat's cheese and paired with Galway Bay Brewery's red ale. Earthy, salty cheese, sweet nuanced honey and a sumptuous red ale to bring them all together.

Both of these pairings were specifically chosen for their ease of service and storage in any licensed premises that can serve food. Great beers that merge so easily with Irish seafood and cheese. We would actively encourage all of our hospitality friends to try them sometime!

The Beár Bia podcast can be downloaded from wherever you get your podcasts. Follow Beár Bia here on Instagram for all updates.

After clocking up some serious mileage for their Beár Bia travelling podcast, hosts Dee Laffan and Oisín Davis stayed local for their final episode of season two!

Over on Wexford Street in Dublin's city centre, there have been some wonderful barbecue aromas emanating from Barebone since they opened last November. Glowing reports of their food, as well as a beautifully curated Irish-centric drinks menu, meant that paying them a visit was well overdue. Especially when we saw that they were keen supporters of Fierce Mild, Ireland's first non alcoholic brewery. Thankfully, Barebone's manager Cal Hennessy and their head chef Bryan Spain could accommodate us, as could the two founders of Fierce Mild Fergal Carroll and Cathal Byrne.

Barebone got a very slick makeover last autumn. Their ground floor has a confident urban feel with a particularly nice DJ booth in the centre back and a function room & kitchen upstairs. The crew behind barbecue legends Smokin' Bones make up part of the ownership team here and that really shows in the food. An offsite smokehouse and slow cook kitchen across town facilitates the team here, meaning they can serve up richly seasoned and lusciously tasty cuts of meat that require the kind of equipment that would never fit or function in their tight space on Wexford Street.

Manager Cal Hennessy explains that this is a great asset for the business as frequent customers already have firm favourites that they regularly come back for. One of these would be their Spatchcock Chicken Mojo, which takes 2 days to prep and brine before hitting their grill. We paired this wonderfully vibrant and herbaceous dish, with the latest member of the Fierce Mild clan, their Lively Lager. It's a Pilsner style brew made with Irish malted barley that has a lightly bitter finish with a gentle fruit note. Perfect balance to the smoky charred chicken and its piquant accompaniments.

The second pairing of the day is another big hitter from the Barebone menu, their 7 oz dry-aged bavette steak with a whiskey & peppercorn cream sauce. To accompany this delight, the Fierce Mild Extra Pale Ale was served. Made in a completely different way to their lager, it features three different hops and a special yeast that holds the integrity of flavour that every great beer should have, regardless if it contains alcohol or not. As it says on their site, "A beer defined by addition not subtraction."

Enjoyed alongside the steak, it paired beautifully - the soft sweetness of the beer amplifying the deep character of the meat.

For our final episode of this season, it was fantastic to go out with something a little different. What Fierce Mild are proving with their range is that when someone wants an alcohol free Irish beer, not only do they not need to compromise on taste and flavour, but they can also really enhance a meal. In 2026, low and no-alcohol brands are an essential part of Ireland's liquid landscape.

You can listen in on this episode here.