Micro Brewery Beers to help pull our country out of Recession?

spider guardian

Never mind all them daft remarks about sessioning our way out of the recession, people are going to drink so why not encourage people to drink local brews and keep money in the domestic economy?

Amazing that there is no popular Irish pale lager, but then in a lot of people's minds mass produced = p1ss.

Maybe the cultural aspect of drinking to get drunk and not to sample the taste is somewhat to blame

28064212

spider guardian wrote: »

Never mind all them daft remarks about sessioning our way out of the recession, people are going to drink so why not encourage people to drink local brews and keep money in the domestic economy?

How are you going to do that? Import taxes? Protectionism doesn't work, and Heineken and Diageo are already brewed here anyhow. Tax break for micro-breweries? Already exists. What exactly are the pro-micro-brewery crowd looking for?

oblivious

spider guardian wrote: »

Amazing that there is no popular Irish pale lager, but then in a lot of people's minds mass produced = p1ss.e

Also economies of scale that craft brewers can't match

spider guardian

28064212 wrote: »

How are you going to do that? Import taxes? Protectionism doesn't work, and Heineken and Diageo are already brewed here anyhow. Tax break for micro-breweries? Already exists. What exactly are the pro-micro-brewery crowd looking for?

I wouldn't be so quick to lump myself into the "pro-micro-brewery" crowd, the only beer I drink is heineken or carlsberg. Some variety in pubs would be nice, in other countries you can get good local brews for a good price. Any tradition we had for local breweries is long-gone, that's if it existed at all.

How am I going to encourage people to drink local brews? No-one is seriously advocating protectionism, there would be war! The best the government can do is continue to offer incentives and then it is up to individuals to produce the goods and the publicans to support them.

Budding brewers aren't exactly ten-a-penny these days, it's hard to see how any local scene can get off the ground. Pint-o-heino there ken

cavedave

spider guardian
Any tradition we had for local breweries is long-gone, that's if it existed at all.

It did but diageo have succeeded in erasing most of the knowledge that it existed.

Budding brewers aren't exactly ten-a-penny these days, it's hard to see how any local scene can get off the ground.

Set up in the last two years Dungarvan, the Oslo, Trouble Brewing, Beoir Chorca Dhuibhne, Clanconnel Brewing Company, Inishmacsaint Brewing Company and White Gypsy (list here). Most of these are in rural locations that where jobs are not ten a penny. Also worth mentioning is the Porterhouses expansion to Manhattan and China.

Boskowski

Jaysoose wrote: »

Encouraging local business is a bad way to help get out of recession?...

I suppose. I just found it to be funny that it was related to drink. Bit like the 'Legalize Marihuana to get out of the recession' thread.

Jaysoose

Boskowski wrote: »

I suppose. I just found it to be funny that it was related to drink. Bit like the 'Legalize Marihuana to get out of the recession' thread.

Its always easier to come up with dismissive remarks than be constructive and contribute i suppose.

Lots of quality craft brewers in ireland and across the border porviding jobs, this can only be a good thing.

Formosa

Smithwicks is Irish and delicious but most people turn their nose up at it.

kraggy

Formosa wrote: »

Smithwicks is Irish and delicious but most people turn their nose up at it.

Smithwicks is owned by Diageo.

Krusty_Clown

kraggy wrote: »

The only thing I drink these days is Galway Hooker.

It's an ale that's brewed by a couple of lads from here in Galway. It's sold in the pubs I happen to drink in thankfully. I love it.

I'd be really glad if there were more of those local beers/ales in the towns/cities of Ireland. Certainly beats the big beers.

Isn't Galway Hooker actually brewed in County Roscommon (around a mile from Roscommon Town). I guess Roscommon Hooker just doesn't have that same ring top it.

I do like the idea about drinking our way our of the recession.

oblivious

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Isn't Galway Hooker actually brewed in County Roscommon (around a mile from Roscommon Town). I guess Roscommon Hooker just doesn't have that same ring top it.

Yes, but Guinness is an English company

BeerNut

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Isn't Galway Hooker actually brewed in County Roscommon

Yes but it's still, as kraggy says, brewed by a couple of lads from there in Galway.

Losty Dublin

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Isn't Galway Hooker actually brewed in County Roscommon (around a mile from Roscommon Town). I guess Roscommon Hooker just doesn't have that same ring top it.

County Galway almost reaches up as far as Roscommon town, believe it or not so it may well be as close as can be. Galway's not all Connemara, ya know

The main issue these MB beers have is that Irish drinkers are conservative in outlook and generally unwilling to risk a new beer, it's impossible to get a good dedicated supply stream into lots of bars thus getting the brand out there plus the drink trade has been going towards home/volume drinking more and more in the last 10 years; all in all it's a big big ask. Porterhouse knew this back in 1996 when they opened in town with the knowledge they'd have the patronage in a pub on site and were able to expand into the right places but this shows as much astute knowledge of the pub trade as the brewing one. Get the product wrong at any stage and you are wasting yout time.

BeerNut

Losty Dublin wrote: »

it's impossible to get a good dedicated supply stream into lots of bars

That's not true the way it was four or five years ago. The new generation of brewers and the new generation of speciality beer bars are much more fastidious about these things than the like of Biddy Early and Dublin Brewing Company were at the turn of the century.

You will very rarely find a Hooker or Trouble tap with no beer in it.

Losty Dublin

BeerNut wrote: »

That's not true the way it was four or five years ago. The new generation of brewers and the new generation of speciality beer bars are much more fastidious about these things than the like of Biddy Early and Dublin Brewing Company were at the turn of the century.

You will very rarely find a Hooker or Trouble tap with no beer in it.

Meant to say almost, sorry. I do remember the days of the likes of No 1 Brew, D'arcy's and Beckett's having taps and signs up in several Dublin pubs only for there to be no beer in them half the time. Soon enough, they got found out when pubs simply didn't make the sales and got rid of them.

drunkmonkey

Interesting little wiki piece on Bacardi & Cuba, I was very surprised it's not made in some way there. I'll be having a Havana Club this week:)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacardi#Bacardi_and_Cuba_today

Could the same be said of Guinness today? Not only does it advertise it's self as Irish, it uses Irish symbols such as Brian Boru's Harp in it's branding but there's nothing Irish about it only it's heritage, a lot of American's & African's would be very surprised by this.

Don't get me wrong Guinness has done a lot for our worldwide profile but we have to ensure that new Visitors and countries around the world know there is more than one Irish Beer, one which can be made here and sent all over the world. I believe there is 10-15% of GDP to be made in this sector.

As I see it there is currently a lot of dry counties around the country and a lot of empty pubs that need to reinvent themselves as brew pubs.

Antrim - The Hilden Brewing Company
Armagh - Dry
Carlow - The Carlow Brewing Company
Cavan - Dry
Clare - Dry
Cork - The Franciscan Well Brewery
Derry - Dry
Donegal- Dry
Down - Cloncannel Brewing Company
Dublin - The Porterhouse Brew Company
Fermanagh - Dry
Galway - The Oslo Microbrewery & Bar
Kerry - West Kerry Brewery
Kildare - Dry ( The birthplace of what is now Guinness)
Kilkenny - Dry
Laois - Dry
Leitrim - Dry
Limerick - Dry
Longford - Dry
Louth - Dry
Mayo - Dry
Meath - Dry
Monaghan - Dry
Offaly - Dry
Roscommon - The Galway Hooker
Sligo - Dry
Tipperary - White Gypsy Brewery
Tyrone - Dry
Waterford - The Dungarvin Brewing Company
Westmeath - Dry
Wexford - Dry
Wicklow - Dry

Hope I haven't left anyone out but as you can see it's pretty poor state for a country that's ranked number 1 drinkers in the world. A nation that loves beer by all accounts.

noby

Trouble Brewing in Kildare; Messrs Maguires in Dublin; Whitewater in Down. I may have missed someone, but I'm tired.

Oh and there's no 'i' in Dungarvan (and that's not a saying *smilie*)

oblivious

drunkmonkey wrote: »

I it's pretty poor state for a country that's ranked number 1 drinkers in the world. A nation that loves beer by all accounts.

Quantity not quality, they lover crap beer.

BeerNut

drunkmonkey wrote: »

a lot of empty pubs that need to reinvent themselves as brew pubs.

Have you ever been to a brewpub where they're not really into beer and are just doing it to have a cheap source of stock and/or a gimmick? It's not pretty and it's more harmful to the cause of independent breweries than any number of multinational beer factories.

It's not enough to just set up a brewkit, you have to be interested in beer. Our problem is that, despite one of the highest per capita beer consumption rates in the world, Irish drinkers (and publicans!) aren't really interested in beer. They're more interested in brands.

BeerNut

noby wrote: »

I may have missed someone, but I'm tired.

Inishmacsaint in Fermanagh. Also, I think we can officially add Metalman in Waterford too: first beer being brewed today.

hypervalve

BeerNut wrote: »

Irish drinkers (and publicans!) aren't really interested in beer. They're more interested in brands.

It's sad really but most people are happy with the same five mass produced approximations of beer that are on tap in every pub in the country. If we didn't have Guinness we'd have nothing going for us. We're just not cultured when it comes to beer.

I'd love to see micro-brewing become popular here. It's not going to pull the country out of recession but it would certainly help. And having good choice of beers in the pubs would be a bonus. There's definitely a gap in the market. Any budding entrepreneurs/beer lovers willing to give it a shot. I know of one course in Edinburgh:

http://www.postgraduate.hw.ac.uk/course/118/

BeerNut

hypervalve wrote: »

It's sad really but most people are happy with the same five mass produced approximations of beer that are on tap in every pub in the country.

Thing is, that's true in the US, in Britain and every other country where good beer is readily available and there are loads of small breweries. The expansion of microbrewed beers is not going to see the macros knocked off the bar or mass conversions from one to the other. The continued existence and popularity of Heineken is not a threat to Irish craft beer.

hypervalve wrote: »

I'd love to see micro-brewing become popular here.

You speak as though it's something that's not happening, but it is. It's real: over dozen breweries (four new ones in the last twelve months) and hundreds of stockists. The beer is out there to be drunk and the only way to make it more popular is to drink it and tell other people about it.

But we shouldn't expect to wake up one day and find someone else has turned every Miller tap into Galway Hooker.

hypervalve

BeerNut wrote: »

You speak as though it's something that's not happening, but it is. It's real: over dozen breweries (four new ones in the last twelve months)

Well I'm only really comparing it to the UK where almost every pub has a selection of local beer's on tap to choose from. I know it's not non existent here but it's nowhere near that scale.

BeerNut

hypervalve wrote: »

almost every pub has a selection of local beer's on tap to chose from.

I think a lot of this is just perception. The 2010 Cask Report has 51% of UK pubs carrying cask beer. Granted there'll be a proportion of local keg -- in the North in particular -- but there are quite a few national cask brands too. I doubt even half of the pubs in the UK carry a local beer.

Furthermore I don't think it's fair in this comparison to count beer from the large regionals as local, any more than you'd count Budweiser as a local beer in Kilkenny or Heineken as a local beer in Cork.

The small independent brewery scene in the UK isn't that different to what we have here.

hypervalve

BeerNut wrote: »

I think a lot of this is just perception. The The small independent brewery scene in the UK isn't that different to what we have here.

Ok I haven't researched it properly, I'm just going by what I've experienced my self through drinking in various English and Irish pubs in the last year or two.

So you're saying that there is a similar level of independent brewing (proportionally) in Ireland? That doesn't seem right to me just going on what I've experienced first hand myself.

BeerNut

hypervalve wrote: »

That doesn't seem right to me just going on what I've experienced first hand myself.

It depends on where you draw the lines. The UK has large old independent breweries like Marston's, Greene King, Wells & Young and Fuller's who distribute nationally. In Ireland Carlow and Whitewater are getting there, but they concentrate more in the off trade. So if independence is the criterion then yes, the UK is ahead of us, but for historical reasons. We can't roll back the clock and revive the big independent Irish breweries.

The UK's new small independents offer a much better comparison to Irish micros. In London, for instance, you have Meantime, Battersea, Saints & Sinners, Camden Town, The Kernel, Sambrooks, Redemption and Brodie's. Walk into a random pub and the chances are you will not find these local beers on tap. I would hazard that a lot of London beer drinkers have never even heard of them.

Pepe LeFrits

Is it purely a cultural thing that's preventing Irish microbreweries from developing a wider appeal in Ireland, or are there any governance issues as well? Or are there are genuine problems with Diageo & Heineken operating a cartel?

I'd genuinely love to know if either of the latter are factors.

BeerNut

Pepe LeFrits wrote: »

are there any governance issues as well? Or are there are genuine problems with Diageo & Heineken operating a cartel?

I wouldn't say the Big Two have a cartel, but the barriers to entry for newcomers are huge. If you want to try and seriously compete with them, you need multinational money behind you. MolsonCoors and C&C (agents for A-B InBev) are having a go at it at the moment, but really the independent breweries are working to a different business model altogether.