Supporting craft breweries

Has Larkins brewery gone out of business does anyone know?

Was in my local Molloys earlier and noticed there was no 8 Degrees product at all, which was a bit odd.

I'd say most of the 8 degrees production effort is going into the Jameson Caskmates range which would be significantly more profitable. I wonder if the original 2 guys are even still involved since they were acquired by Irish Distillers in 2018

Are there any particular 8degress beers people would recommend. Any time I tried them I was completely underwhelmed.

Just done a full launch of a "New" core range, but I don't think they're all new beers rather than rebranded. They've been a bit messy with the whole curious society pointless rebrand. I had the session IPA over the weekend, and it was grand as core ranges go (except for calling it "Sesh"!).

lol, that's pretty hilarious in a sense.

I know Craft Central are "close" to them - in the sense that their Dog Days IPA (which was actually very good) became a Craft Central exclusive if you're that desperate to track them down. Bierhaus in Cork had their "new" stuff on draft, but Bradley's (also Cork) had nothing new in cans for retail sale.

Weird brewery, by all accounts, it seems.

Craft brewers can't compete with macros on price for two reasons. Scale and cost of ingredients.

Scale allows automation. Automation reduces operating costs. Look at the tiny number of staff proposed for Diageo's new ale and lager brewery in Newbridge - which will presumably be producing huge volumes of Smithwicks, Carlsberg, Rockshore, Hop House 13, Macardles etc.

Specific ingredients that the macro brewers use little or none of are very expensive - patent and/or low yield hops in particular. A very hoppy IPA is going to use huge amounts of expensive hops; and people price compare it to strong lagers which, well, don't.

.. ..

To be fair, there are good deals to be had for the price sensitive craft beer drinker. O'Briens did a 20% off sale on a lot of their craft beer over the weekend. Wicklow Wolf, White Hag, Kinnegar etc 440mls for €2.40. Was in Aldi earlier and they have 6 or 7 Lough Gill 440ml cans for €2 euro a pop. And had two Dot Brew beers for €2.49 and €2.69 each. Like with minimum pricing laws, there really isn't too much of a difference between that and cans of macro lager

I will always support the crafties over the mainstream beers if I am not being gouged.

However like everything else the retailers and producers always try to con the customer when change occurs.

A good Pilsner in my local Supermarket used to be on sale for €1.15 for .500ml can, now it’s up for €1.30 for a 330ml can.

I know there is minimum price involved but hey………

The boy Parsnipp put it succinctly, don’t big up craft beer into mysterious bevvie where only the ‘insiders’ understand the nuances and then try to inflate prices to accommodate that situation.

A reasonable increase is fine, but don’t try to butt ream Pat with the Barista style crud.

Not acceptable.

All Aldi's? Or a specific one? Love the Lough Gill range

Yeah they had the three different IPAs/Pale Ales yesterday, as well as an extra special bitter and a witbier. While the branding is different than the usual Lough Gill cans, they haven't created a fake brewery name like the O'Sheas or Roadworks stufff.

Their (Lough Gill) NE IPA, the one with the Bison on the can is really good.