That is my number one favorite I've been drinking since the first time I had amazing fish and chips in howth at beeshoffs.
Second what reallllly irritates me is the food they serve in these "Irish" pubs. Mac and cheese with Guinness in the cheese sauce, or really dumb crimes like calling cottage pie, shepherds pie even though it's made with beef. And absolutely none of them knowing WHAT traditional Irish food is. No soda bread, no coddle, no Apple snow, just ignorance upon ignorance piled on to stealing "Irish culture" by people with money and NO respect for the country they are trying to imitate. I find it appalling and I ream these places in Yelp reviews.
Regarding cuisine, on the bright side I also haven't seen soggy chips with a mountain of vaguely garlic scented mayo plopped on top exported to other countries as an example of Irish cuisine. The first time I had those I really missed Gordon Biersch :-).
There's some good food here (cheeses come to mind) but I think there's a reason the cuisine hasn't exactly been recognized by UNESCO, unlike Italy, France, or Mexico.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNESCO_Intangible_Cultural_Her...
It's different for, say, wine, because the economics are weird (the economics of grape growing and terroir in particular) and even with an ~2x markup from import and shipping you can grab a random $12 bottle of (say) Spanish wine and there's a very good chance it'll be a hell of a lot better than a random Californian at the same price point, plus, ignoring questions of quality, there's going to be significant demand for (especially) French wine for reputation and signaling reasons. European protection/assurance of production processes probably aids consumer confidence in European versus new-world wine, too, especially on the lower end.
Beer? I can get some damn good $10 US-made 4-packs. I've had some really wonderful $5 bombers. Good luck competing with that after the cost of importing, unless you've got something incredibly special.
On the bright side, I got in to homebrewing because I really, really missed Arrogant Bastard. Now I can actually buy it here in Ireland (Stone started exporting it, and opened a brewery in Berlin), but at €6 for a 330ml bottle it's definitely something I only have as a treat.
I'm not talking about shipping cases of beer from San Francisco to Chicago and selling them at EWR. I'm talking about selling individual bottles at SFO and SJC.
More airports could use something like this: http://www.stonebrewing.com/visit/outposts/airport
Also beer doesn't travel nearly as well as wine.
[0] For example there was an article some time ago detailing plans RyanAir had for offering free flights. They (and the airports I presume) would make money from the things passengers buy at the airports.
[1] Bitter IPA, Sour beers, smoked beers, etc. Whenever we go out drinking craft beers, I always ask for a sample before I buy because there is always something that I don't like the taste of. I made the mistake before of ordering pints of beer and not being able to take more than a sip.
Which is precisely why I want this to be a thing. I want a friend who is flying out of Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport to be able to get through security, pick up a bottle of something from a small brewery in Minnesota, get off in Boston, and bring me a beer I'd otherwise never be able to try.
Shipping liquids is very expensive which is why soda companies have bottling plants all over the country. You ship the dry ingredients and add water near your destination.
Beer is more difficult to produce so it's harder to create brewing/bottling all over the place. Larger brewers, like Heineken, can set up local bottling plants because they have the resources, but small craft brewers are not going to have the capability to do that. That means you've got to ship the brewed beer everywhere which, especially overseas or internationally, is going to be super expensive.