Angus O’Leary

PROFILE
Angus O’Leary arrived on these shores from Dublin
in 1979, in the heyday of Boston’s Irish bar scene,
and a leg or two ahead of the meteoric rise of
international Irish pubdom. Educated in the Irish
language, O’Leary had studied medicine at Trinity
College, Dublin, “but I couldn’t get my oars in the
water on that subject.” His Bay State visit –
originally just for a summer – launched his career
as a publican, working in bars nights while earning
an electrician’s license. Today Angus contents
himself pulling pints, not permits; the only wiring
he does is for his Dorchester home and the cozy,
amiable Beacon Street tavern that has borne his
name since 1992.
IRISH
WAVE I worked at
several pubs including The Blarney Stone in Fields Corner,
Dorchester – it happened to be the first bar in the United
States to serve Guinness on draft. The seeds of the Irish
explosion were sown locally back in the sixties, triggered
by the historic immigration to Boston and came into full
bloom in the ‘8Os, when economic conditions in Ireland were
such that a rush of new immigrants came over. That rush has
slowed considerably, but the popularity remains, and it
hasn’t stemmed the tide of new establishments opening up. As
to whether it has reached saturation point, my guess – with
having my thumb on the pulse of the business and talking to
salesmen – is that it probably has.
GLOBAL
PINTS The fact that
you can find Irish pubs from Singapore to Beijing to
Capetown nowadays probably stems from the fact that there is
a natural and well-founded expectation of hospitality to be
found in Irish pubs. To me it just seems a natural thing,
but many people are newfangled over it, and it certainly
seems to be unique to Irish pubs, lending them a popularity
worldwide. They may be a bit of an anomaly in Moscow and
Prague, but they seem to work.
TOP
PORTER Our most
popular drink would be Guinness. I’ve never developed a
taste for it myself. Other porters that have taken a shot at
Guinness are Smithwick’s (which we carry), Murphy’s and
Beamish (which we don’t) – but none have dented it to any
perceptible degree. We have just 14 taps. It’s not realistic
to expand. You see places not much bigger than this with 7O
beers on draft. The rule of thumb in this business is that
if a keg has been tapped for more than a week it becomes
over-carbonated and loses character. Then you run a high
risk of selling an inferior product.
WHITES
and PINKS We’re
more of a beer place than one that serves these newfangled
martinis. We sell many of the white spirits and of course
whiskey, but not cognac, for example. We sell the more
wholesome drinks. People do ask for vodka by name: Stoly
products and Gray Goose, the new vodka of choice. There’s
been that explosion of late, especially with flavored
vodkas. Each brand has its own litany of flavors; in a small
place like this it’s impossible to carry them all. One tends
to go with those flavors that sell best: Stoly Raspberry has
been the most enduring so far. I sometimes equate the
spirits business with the perfume business: for every 1OO
that are produced and marketed, only one or two will
stick.
WHISKEY
CHASE When I first
started in this business, Scotch outsold Irish by a wide
margin. My sense is that the gap has closed since. Jameson
and Bushmill sell the best. The appearance of single-malts
among the higher-end Irish whiskeys certainly made some
inroads into the Scotch. Jameson, for example, makes a
12-year (formerly the ‘178O’, an 18-year, and Redbreast,
which may not yet be available in the States.) Each whiskey
has a few people that drink them religiously. Yet, in the
big picture, Scotch is to Irish whisky what Guinness is to
other porters; I’d guess they dwarf all competition.
WINES
in STOCK Purveyors
tell me that while wine sales are holding steady, the
higher-end ones have slacked off. People who’d think nothing
of spending $3O to $4O a bottle retail a few years ago are
more willing to compromise. I’m no sommelier, but I think
people are realizing that the price of a wine is not all
that important. Even though we have a decent list and sell
our fair share of wine, people are just as likely to order
beer with their meals.
MIX
‘EM UP We have our
fair share of mixed drinks ordered especially at certain
times of the year, but we’re hardly a cocktail lounge where
people experiment with drinks. Mixed drinks may be fine in a
hotel bar, but here we’re multi-tasking all the time. It has
been suggested to us many times that we put together a
special, eclectic martini list – that’s all well and good,
but if you’re in any way busy, it’s going to take you five
minutes to make any one of them. It looks fine, but when the
chips are down and people are waiting for drinks, well, it
just doesn’t work. We get quite a few calls for our coffee
drinks; they’re pretty straightforward – as long as we can
remember how to make them!
STRIKE
the HARP Live music
for us is an added feature, not our bread and butter. Some
places depend on Friday and Saturday to roll around for the
bulk of their business, but we’re not structured that way.
Our students are only here half the year, the Red Sox fans
just eighty days. The day you make yourself dependent on any
one clientele, you’re jeopardizing your business. It’s wiser
to try to appeal to a broader clientele, and get a little
bit of them all the time. But having performers here
weekends does bolster business somewhat, especially in
summer.
GOOD
PUBLICAN Surely we
Irish don’t have a lock on running a good establishment. Any
place worth its salt should take care of the fundamentals:
quality food, quality drink, reasonably priced, in a
handsome, welcoming and safe atmosphere. One can have all
the good will and hospitability in the world, but without
those things in place, it’s not going to happen. Having an
Irish staff may be icing on the cake! Once you’ve done those
basics, then certainly it’s best to make people feel
welcome, accommodating their needs within reason or to the
best of your ability, and doing things to everyone’s
satisfaction.