Smashing It: Brilliant Burgers in the Bog!

That’s right– an outstanding burger truck bang in the middle of the bog! If you’ve never been to Pullough, you now have a solidly delicious reason to go: the small village is home to a destination bacon cheeseburger and all sorts of dressed fries.

Pullough (or Pollagh – depends who’s asking) is a village in County Offaly nestled between the Brosna river and the Grand Canal in the Irish midlands–it’s where I grew up. As much as I love it, until recently I wouldn’t have thought of Pullough as a hot spot for tourism, but that is all changing. And the new burger truck Bog Standard Burgers is playing a part.

If you haven’t heard, its all about the bogs these days. Pullough is surrounded by peat-rich bogs which have long provided energy and employment for the area. Turf from the bog was fuel for a brick industry here in the 1800s and local Turraun bog was a prototype site for Bord na Móna (the Irish national peat industry). So the bog is pretty central to the story of Pullough.

Wet bogs fight climate change, have unique biodiversity as well as a magical ability to preserve things from the past, like bog bodies and bog butter. Awareness of bogs’ special qualities has inspired renewed attention from artists, writers and communities working to restore their local bogs.

Until recently, “Bog Standard” and being from the bog had not-so-desirable connotations. ‘Bogger’ gets thrown about as a generic catch-all for unsophisticated non-cosmopolites. But what was once dismissed as soggy, barren and associated with the hardship of bringing home the turf is now in the spotlight. Suddenly, bogs are big.

This peaty renaissance is the prime time for new food truck, Bog Standard Burgers, to open in Pullough, right next to the magnificent Pull Inn Pub, owned and run by the Gallagher family.

The term “Bog Standard” has long meant boringly ordinary or average.  It’s a bold move to take on these associations and try to turn them on their head. To do this, Bog Standard Burgers are making a global trend local. They specialise in smashburgers, hot stuff in the burger world.  Originating in the US, they are a way of making burgers with thin, flat and crispy patties, squashed on the grill to create lacy, umami-rich edges. These are layered (usually two) in a soft bun with melted cheese, wafer thin fried onions and topped as you like.

I met owners and couple Derek Gorman and Lisa English for a chat. They both have a background in food and met seven years ago when they worked as chefs in the Brewery Tap pub in Tullamore. They have long been threatening to open their own business, but it was the birth of their son Jack last year that pushed them towards their dream of opening their own business.

Lisa says, “we had the child and then the question was, what will we do? We’ve done this kind of thing for so many people, it’s time to go out for ourselves and see what we can do. If we don’t do it now we’ll never do it”.  They landed on the name Bog Standard Burgers quite easily. Derek says, “We’re living on the bog, I grew up spending summers on the bog. We decided that we wanted a new twist on the term bog standard”.

Lisa is from Pullough and the family now live in the village. They knew that up until now, getting a takeaway in the village meant a bit of a drive to Ferbane, Clara or Tullamore. There was a site beside the Pull Inn and they decided to go for it in May this year.

Until recently Derek was head chef in golfer Shane Lowry’s gastro-pub The Old Warehouse in Tullamore but his culinary experience goes way back. He started cooking when he was fourteen. He lived and cooked in California for well over a decade, spending time in San Francisco and San Jose before returning home in 2016.

Derek’s time across the Atlantic was a huge influence on how he cooks. He says, “a friend brought me for my first smashburger. I was fascinated with them, I loved going to Smash Bro’s. That was the beginning of it.”

As a result, smashburgers are the star of the menu. The regular ‘bog standard’ burger comes with tomato, crunchy lettuce, onion and a tangy house sauce. There’s a ‘cheese stack’ and a ‘baconator’ (the most popular) with crispy streaky bacon and baconaise.

There’s also one with mushroom and swiss cheese, a chipotle burger (which is also great with chicken instead of beef), and a vegetarian beetroot burger option. They do a child-size burger for the kids.

Their fries are skinny and skin-on and they do a selection of loaded fries with toppings like nacho cheese, spicy beef, garlic mayonnaise, curry and bacon and cheese.  They have lots of dip options (the garlic is amazing). They make everything in-house, including a chipotle dip which Derek picked up during his time in California.

My personal preference is usually the baconator, which gets you two patties of crispy, delicious, perfectly seasoned beef, topped with salty, almost crunchy bacon, melted cheese and tangy sauce on soft, squidgy brioche style buns. The burgers are filling but the quality leaves you feeling happily sated, not overly stuffed.

The food is now a regular feature when I visit my parents at the weekend, who both love the bog standard burger and fries. A welcome benefit of the location is that while BSB are very efficient, their popularity sometimes means there’s a bit of a wait – so you have the perfect excuse to nip into the Pull Inn for a pint of their excellent Guinness.

I asked Derek and Lisa a bit about their approach, which is all about good ingredients. The beef patties are seasoned with just Maldon salt and black pepper and cooked on a cast iron grill. The method appeals to Derek. He says, “the juices are sealed in so they are a crispy, easy eat. They are big 6oz burgers but it doesn’t feel like you’re eating something that size”.

I asked him what he thinks the secret is to a good burger. He says, “just keep it simple, no messing.” Supplier wise, they get as much as possible locally and the beef comes from Tullamore butchers P.J. Grennan’s. I was very impressed by their entirely paper-based packaging, which they get from Gaelpac in Cloghan.

Things have been hectic since they opened that first Saturday in early May.  They opened the hatch to a queue of at least forty people. There were only two of them working and they had to rope Derek’s sister in from the queue to take orders. But they’re getting into the swing of things now and making improvements all the time.

The queues every weekend for these burgers and fries are testament to the quality of what Derek and Lisa are doing.  What’s next for Bog Standard Burgers? Lisa says the current level of business means they are thinking about upgrading, getting a bigger truck and look into delivery options. But for now, they’re going to keep doing what they do. She says, “It’s just the beginning, our menu will change, but it’s a good start and we’re in the right place. It’s beautiful out here in Pullough, it’s a hidden gem”.

One welcome recent addition to rural life is the expansion of Greenways everywhere, opening up hitherto unexplored pockets of the Irish countryside.  The Grand Canal greenway links towns and villages from Dublin to the Shannon, offering a conveniently flat Midlands pathway through green fields and brown bogs.

Spots like the Bakehouse in Ballycommon have boomed as people discovered the pleasure of a canalside cycle with the promise of cake or a pint at the end of your journey. Now you can add burgers to that list of incentives.

You can cycle to Pullough in less than an hour from Tullamore and it’s also easily reached from Kilcormac, Ferbane and Shannon Harbour. The bog is a great place to visit and Lough Boora sculpture and nature park is a short detour off the Greenway through Turraun wetlands. So get on your bike and come to Pullough for a well-earned smashburger (and a top notch pint).

Bio: Caitríona Devery is a writer from Offaly but based in Dublin, with interests in food, art, heritage and the environment. She is a member of the Irish Food Writers’ Guild and has written for the UK-based Feast Journal, Dublin’s Rabble magazine as well as District magazine and its offshoot Char.