Pearse Lyons Feast & Food Pairing | Belfast Whiskey Week 2023

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

Filed: 15 Jul 2023
By: Belfast Whiskey Week
Read: 4 min
Ref: BWW/23/140

On a Wednesday evening in October 2023, a small but well-fed crowd gathered at Tribal Burger for one of Belfast Whiskey Week's most quietly compelling food pairing events of the year. 71: Pearse Lyons — A Feast (for a Lyon Maybe?) brought Dublin's Pearse Irish Whiskey north of the sheugh for an evening of four considered drams, a bespoke menu, and the kind of storytelling that makes uisce beatha worth sitting still for.

About This Event

Pearse Lyons has been one of the greatest stories to come out of Dublin during our Irish Whiskey Industry Revival. Their Distillery is a City Landmark; an actual Beacon of Light. Their range of Whiskies is Savage, and has probably gone under the radar here in the North. For those with prior knowledge of Pearse Lyons you’ll already know what I mean, when I say, that their unique position, in having a sister distillery in the USA, lets them have a fantastic opprtunity on doing internal collaborations across the pond. Let’s allow Tribal Burger to wow us with their bespoke menu for the evening, drink some fantastic drams and serves, while socialising and getting to know more about this inspirational Irish Whiskey. Timeslot: 6pm-9pm Start Time: 6pm Duration: 2.5hrs Venue: Tribal Drinks: 4 Drinks Type: Food Pairing Disclaimers Please note that individual dietary requirements are not being catered for with any food at this event. Each Brand/Distillery and Collaborative Partner have agreed to our Min/Max Pour Policy. Please Respect this, and enjoy your festival responsibly. Festival Participants who are deemed to be too inebriated, or are not respecting themselves, will not be permitted into events and venues. ALL Hosts/Ushers/Collaborators and Venue Staff have the right to refuse participants without question and recourse. Please Drink Responsibly. All events are only available to those 18 years old and over. Do not purchase tickets if you are under the age of 18. Be prepared to produce ID if required. Venue staff & ushers may ask you to provide ID when showing your valid tickets. You may be refused enter to events if you can’t prove your age. Some venues may change, if they do, you will be notified. All events are subject to changes out of the control of the festival organisers. Any issues, please contact us @belfastwhiskeyweek on socials, or via email on marketing@belfastwhiskeyweek.com or 07773675179 (8am-8pm) to discuss. NO Refunds will be given. Please only buy tickets if you are prepared to attend the event. Tickets are transferable. If you are going to transfer tickets please email, marketing@belfastwhiskeyweek.com

Looking Back

There's a particular pleasure in a whiskey event that feels like a discovery rather than a demonstration. Pearse Irish Whiskey had, as the festival programme noted with refreshing candour, perhaps gone a little under the radar here in the North — and that made the evening all the more rewarding for those who showed up. The Pearse Lyons Distillery sits within a former church in Dublin's Liberties, a building that carries its own seanchas — layers of history and memory that the distillery has folded into something genuinely modern and alive. That sense of place came with the whiskey.

Tribal Burger, one of Belfast's most inventive food operations, rose to the occasion with a bespoke menu built around the Pearse range rather than bolted alongside it. Four drinks across the evening — a thoughtful count, enough to explore without excess — gave the food pairings room to breathe. The interplay between Pearse's house style, shaped in part by founder Thomas Pearse Lyons's transatlantic vision and the distillery's unique relationship with its sister operation in the USA, gave the evening a breadth that single-origin whiskey events sometimes lack. There was an American ease to some of the casks, an Irish softness in the grain, and Tribal's kitchen seemed to understand both registers.

What set Pearse apart in conversation that night was the internal collaboration story — the ability to draw on American production know-how and cask influence while keeping the spirit rooted in Dublin. It's a rare position in the Irish whiskey landscape, and it showed in the glass. If you've spent time with Pearse's range before, you'll know the quality is there; if Wednesday the 26th of October was your introduction, you likely left wondering why you hadn't sought them out sooner. Their range is well worth exploring further if the evening left you curious.

Tribal Burger had previous form at Belfast Whiskey Week 2023 — the venue hosted a string of food pairing evenings across the festival week, including a Dublin Liberties Distillery session and a Limavady pairing night that drew similarly enthusiastic crowds. By the time the Pearse feast arrived on the Wednesday, the kitchen and floor team had clearly found their rhythm with whiskey-led menus, and it showed. The service was warm, the pacing was generous, and nobody left hungry — which, in a festival week that asks a lot of your liver, is something worth acknowledging.

Events like this one are why Belfast Whiskey Week matters beyond the big showcase tastings. The duchas of Irish whiskey — its rootedness in place, craft, and community — travels well when the conditions are right. A converted Dublin church, a Belfast burger kitchen, four drams, and a room full of people willing to be surprised. That's the festival doing what it does best.