Their pairing was a delicious Double Smash Cheeseburger basted with Allta Restaurant’s Shiitake Miso Butter matched with O’Hara’s IPA.

As part of the prize for winning Best Irish Food & Drink Pairing, Barry Wallace of Dash Burger nominated Dublin Simon Community to receive a thousand euro charity donation paid for by Great Irish Beverages.

The Pairing

The beef for Dash Burger is Irish Beef supplied by Pat McLoughlin of McLoughlins Butchers and is all grass-fed. They use an aged beef mix of secret cuts that keep their burgers crispy yet juicy. Coughlans Bakery supplies their equally Irish potato buns, and their cheese is from Kerrymaid.

O’Hara’s Irish Pale Ale is a Contemporary style IPA with an Irish twist. Zesty and refreshingly bitter, the finish is long. With a copper-toned body topped with a lightly carbonated head, the dry hopping brings an intense aroma and lasting array of fruit and floral notes – the perfect contrast to bring out the richness of the Double Smash Cheeseburger!

Great Irish Beverages completed running its first nationwide festival in three years – Irish Food & Drink Month. It was a celebration of pairing Irish foods with Irish drinks for the hospitality sector. 

The Competition

Any licensed bar, restaurant or hotel was able to register for free, and in order to get involved, they had to create and sell a signature Irish food & drink pairing for the whole month of October. By working alongside a number of different Irish drinks brands across many sectors, they were able to bring on a hundred and forty different venues from sixteen different counties.

Each of these was listed on the Great Irish Beverages website for the public to see, and each of them created a signature Irish food & drink pairing! Among the venues taking part were Michelin-Star fine dining hot spots, gastro pubs, hotels and local restaurants.

There was a public vote for which of the hundred and forty participating venues had the best pairing. This was done on Instagram using the #EatDrinkIrish hashtag as a means to cast a vote.

The winning venue was from Dublin, Dash Burger. They have two outlets, one on Capel Street and another on Kevin Street. Their pairing was a delicious Double Smash Cheeseburger basted with Allta Restaurant’s Shiitake Miso Butter matched with O’Hara’s IPA.

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Japanese classic Asahi Super Dry is to be celebrated in a ‘Beyond Expected’ event this November at Opium Botanical Garden. You can get tickets for this once-off event here. Tickets cost €54.00 for the 17:30 sitting, which includes karaoke, and €49.00 for the 20.30 sitting. Reservations are open and strictly limited. Please drink Asahi responsibly. Visit drinkaware.ie for more info