Craft breweries may not be signed up to the dogma of constant growth. These macro increases are not to keep the lights on but rather to keep the shareholders in their yearly 5% growth targets.
Many people order off Craft Beers Delivered? My father-in-law got me a mixed case from them for Christmas and as I'm working my way through I've found a good few have been BBE April 24, which is a bit older than I'd hope for.
Haven't seen any publicans posting photos of ripped out Rockshore or Hophouse taps. I don't think we will either. To be fair, I think they probably hoped Heineken would rein in their increases and hoped Diageo would follow suit. The ship has sailed though and Diageo know practically no pub is gonna drop Guinness.
just saw this thread on the front page. Haven't been keeping up with it. I am a big beer fan, I used to make alot of my own beer. have to say that as a consumer the options have steadily gotten worse both in pub and off licences. I see the same old brands over and over again with just a handful of independent irish brands out there and even those that have survived have had a good bit of cash behind them. Always felt some kind of tax break that enabled breweries and pubs to sell cheaper to customers within ~10km of their business would encourage local towns to have their own brewery and local people to support them. Esp now with the price of a pint - if there was an option to have a local beer for a significantly lower price then it would be much more appealing to the consumer who is watching their money rather than someone who is happy shell out for something interesting. Can't see it happening
Ireland will only ever be able to sustain a certain amount of breweries big enough to be nationwide and I don't think it's gotten less. Brexit really really fked us in terms of variety in Irish craft places.
One problem is places that are not craft led both here and far more noticeable in the UK are going for the same fake craft or the few mega craft breweries. The kinda places that just have an IPA or 2 will lazily go for them.
Harris is the same price as all Diageo lagers except for Hop House 13 which is 10c dearer. Sarsfield is the same as Guinness and only 20c dearer than Beamish. Heineken and Coors are 30c dearer and Moretti €1.30 dearer.
The problem wasn't that Heineken increased their price more that they decided to do it right before Christmas!
When I mentioned it in one of my locals (the one that has 4 local taps) at the time of the Heineken increase, they said they'd never pull out Heino or Coors, but were looking at the other taps. Forgot to look was the Moretti tap still there over Christmas, put didn't notice a blank tap.
Anyway, Guinness/ Diageo have to do something in these hard times to protect their circa stg£4 billion operating profit!
Where abouts ?
You said like every pub has the exact same price. Or are you talking about the wholesale value per pint ?
To Øl are having a bunch of beers on tap in Fidelity this Thursday, with one of their founders there as well.
Damn it wrong Thursday.
What's that Frank Ryans place like across the road ?
it's very hipster imo
People can mean that to be a good thing or the highest of insults.
It often means the beer is good which is what I am wondering about.
yeah the beer is decent, and I don't mean it as an insult or a good thing, it's a descriptor.
I am a big beer fan and I think options for consumers have never been better as regards Irish beer. There's certainly more than a "handful" of Irish brands available where I shop.
Mostly a young crowd. Really good pizza! Very eclectic music. As dark as **** - you've to grope your way to the loos! In terms of beer, the only craft is O'Hara's (session and regular IPA) and Graciosa, and they've a rebadged porter, can't remember who brews it.
My local Tesco in Wicklow has Rye River (plus Solas), O'Hara's, Wicklow Wolf, Treaty City, Kinnegar, Hope, Galway Bay, Blacks, Yellowbelly. I would've said when I started moving away from Guinness/ Bulmers/ Bud the choices in there were O'Hara's, and then Hobgoblin and Speckled Hen and other UK options.
Wetherspoon's January sale has pints of Dungarvan copper coast for as low as €2.20 in Swords (€1.95 in pubs outside Dublin). They have pints of ale for 99p in Belfast but that would be illegal here.
Hope beers in Gibneys in Malahide are 40 cents per pint cheaper than Heineken which is up to a whopping €7.30 now.
Bar I work in in Limerick city centre. Most would be in a similar price range in town.
Just tried this, very enjoyable. AFAIK they're new enough on the block.
Fairly new. Declan from Otterbank is brewing for them (on their own kit). Not seen any available on shelves myself yet.
Only went up the other day. I believe there's a keg downstairs as well.
Got to visit Underdog yesterday for the first time in the new location. Nice! Gotta love a pub with more types of imperial stout (4, I think) than lager (a pils and a Helles)!
UD have had a couple on tap since they've reopened
Good to know. They'll be excellent quality so. great to ahve another local brewery. They could definitely work on the label design a little but I can't wait to taste them.
Assume this will end up being brewed in Dunfanaghy?
Afaik, Declan was asked to be technical advisor to set up the brewery and ended up helping out with brewing. He's due down tomorrow so will find out.
The brewery is in the Caisleáin Óir Hotel. Been going about a year now. Bought the old kit from the Finn Valley Brewery.
Finn Valley
Old Mill
Muckish Mountain
Evans
Boghopper
Donegal had seen a fair share of breweries come and go? Or is it pretty much the same as most counties?
Muckish Mountain was never a brewery; Evans wasn't much more than a homebrew set-up, while Finn Valley and Boghopper got someone else to take over the gear without leaving the county. Compare that with Wexford where Jack Doyle's, Drew Fox and YellowBelly are gone gone as full scale production breweries.
Didn't realize Yellowbelly were gone as some of their beer is still around. Really liked their stuff as they were into doing interesting non pale/IPA beer.
I could be wrong but I think Limerick was Treaty, JJ's and then Crew in that order with no closures. A pretty manageable amount for what should be one of the bigger markets in Ireland.
