Pearse Irish Whiskey at Belfast Whiskey Week 2025 | SWT Review

Name: Belfast Whiskey Week 2026
Start: 2026-07-24
End: 2026-08-01
Location: Belfast

Filed: 15 Jul 2025
By: Belfast Whiskey Week
Read: 4 min
Ref: BWW/25/452

There's a certain confidence required to stand up in front of a room full of Belfast whiskey lovers and say, essentially, trust us — and that's exactly what the fourth instalment of the An Acquired Taste series did when it welcomed Pearse Irish Whiskey to the John Hewitt on 24th July 2025. A straight whiskey tasting stripped of ceremony and pretension, this session offered something deceptively simple: good whiskey, good company, and the quiet conviction that Dublin and Belfast have more in common than a sheugh between them.

About This Event

An Acquired Taste sessions are about getting to try some whiskies with out the fuss. No fuss here. Just Whiskies that you should be able to drink. I mean - there is complete irony in the title! Just trust us - we know whiskey.

We welcome Dublin’s famous Pearse Lyons. As one of the only Distilleries active in Dublin, we are humbled that they have chosen to come back to Belfast Whiskey Week to share their fantastic range of Dublin Whiskey. Pearse Lyons has probably, the most stunning Distillery on the Island and dedicated team behind a vision to make distilling Dublin whiskey part of the City’s future not just it’s past.

If you don’t like these - then we are F*****

Looking Back

The An Acquired Taste format has always worn its irony proudly. The name suggests difficulty; the reality is the opposite. These sessions are built for discovery — no lectures, no snobbery, no gatekeeping. Just pour, taste, and let the uisce beatha do the talking. For Session 4, that meant handing the floor over to Pearse Irish Whiskey, returning guests to Belfast Whiskey Week, and a brand whose return felt less like a commercial arrangement and more like a reunion among people who already knew each other well.

Pearse Lyons Distillery sits in the heart of Dublin's Liberties, housed in a deconsecrated church of extraordinary beauty — arguably the most striking distillery building on the island of Ireland, and one that wears its sense of duchas with rare grace. The connection between place and production is woven into every bottle they release, rooted in the legacy of founder Thomas Pearse Lyons and carried forward by a team with genuine belief in what they're making. The range they brought to Belfast reflected that: accessible, honest Dublin whiskey with craft and character to spare, the kind of drams that reward both the curious newcomer and the seasoned sipper.

The John Hewitt made for a fitting host — a room with its own strong sense of community and no shortage of character. Attendees settled in at 3pm and were guided through the Pearse range with the relaxed authority the Acquired Taste sessions have become known for. The tasting notes were honest, the conversation flowed freely, and there was that particular atmosphere you get when a room full of people realise, collectively, that they're drinking something rather good. For those who'd already sampled some of the festival's broader opening session at Daisies, this felt like a rewarding deepening — a chance to slow down and spend real time with one producer's vision.

What Pearse Irish Whiskey represents in the wider story of Irish distilling is worth pausing on. Dublin whiskey was, not so long ago, a tradition on the edge of extinction in its own city. The revival has been hard-won, and Pearse Lyons has been one of the distilleries doing genuine, unglamorous work to make Dublin whiskey part of the capital's present and future — not merely a nostalgia act. That story resonated in Belfast, a city that knows something about reclaiming its own industrial and cultural heritage. If you want to trace that journey further, the full Pearse Irish Whiskey range tells it bottle by bottle.

Session 4 delivered exactly what it promised: no fuss, no failure, just whiskey worth knowing. The organisers' earthy confidence in Pearse — expressed with characteristic Belfast directness in the event description — turned out to be entirely justified. For those who missed it, or who are piecing together a picture of how Belfast Whiskey Week 2025 explored the wider world of whiskey beyond Ulster's borders, the BWW Whiskey Map offers a useful guide to where every dram came from across the festival week. Slàinte mhath to Pearse for making the journey north, and to everyone who pulled up a seat on a Thursday afternoon and gave Dublin whiskey the attention it deserves.