A Waterville brewery just won Ireland's best wood-aged beer

McGill's Brewery in Waterville has taken gold at the 2026 World Beer Awards, with its An Coirean barrel-aged imperial stout named Ireland's best wood-aged beer. Its Puffin Island Imperial Stout took a silver in the same round. It is the third time one of the brewery's barrel-aged beers has won the category.

An Coirean is the Irish name for Waterville, which tells you most of what you need to know about the place: the beers are named for local people and landmarks rather than for marketing. The whiskey barrels the stout matures in come from the great-great-grandnephew of Daniel O'Connell, whose house at Derrynane is half an hour down the coast.

For anyone driving the Ring, the practical point is that McGill's is not a detour. It sits on the N70 a couple of kilometres north of Waterville, where most people stop for lunch on the western side of the loop anyway, and it runs tours of three lengths, all ending in a tasting and all needing to be booked because the room is small.

It is also the first microbrewery on the Iveragh Peninsula, which is a reasonable thing to raise a glass to.