Home brews

The farm-based microbrewery that’s winning global awards

THE McDonald family have an impressive track record in farm diversification that stretches back a century, and Paddy McDonald and his brother Ian are carrying on that tradition with their own farm business.

“Our father, John, and our grandparents, who were dairy farmers, established the Leix Dairy on the farm in the 1920s,” says Paddy. “It has now been taken over by Glanbia. Our grandfather, father and uncle set up Clonmore Meats on another area of the farm in the 1970s and it’s still going strong too, now under the ownership of Tommy Brennan.”

After discovering the world of craft beers and home brewing while travelling abroad, Paddy, a quantity surveyor by profession, saw an opportunity to utilise what the family farm produces to create a viable on-farm enterprise.

The result is 12 Acres Brewing – a thriving microbrewery that’s supplying local pubs, hotels and off licenses as well as selected off licenses nationwide. Named after one of the barley fields on the McDonald farm, the 12 Acre brews have been well received at home and abroad since launching in 2016 and one of their ales scooped a gold medal in this year’s World Beer Awards.

Tillage has always been at the heart of the farm in Clonmore near Killeshin and when Paddy explored the potential of craft beer, he realised the family farm had the perfect base for a brewing business.

“Ian, and my father before him, have grown malting barley for the brewing and distilling industries and have worked to contract with Minch Malt in Athy,” he says.

“There has always been a fantastic supply of fresh, spring water on the farm and we had been trying to find a way to utilise it. Ian had already been growing a good quality malting barley so we had the two key ingredients readily available. We approached Minch Malt about malting a batch of our own Killeshin malting barley. They agreed that was a starting point for us.”

The next step was to start brewing so they approached a small brewing company in West Cork which agreed to make their first batch of beer. “Minch returned our malted barley to us and we began brewing to contract with 9 White Deer Microbrewery in Cork. It worked well so we decided to put a business plan together and approach the bank for some support to set up own microbrewery,” says Paddy.

Getting funding for the new business wasn’t as straightforward as Paddy had hoped, with the bank declining his loan application because the business didn’t yet have a steady customer base. “I decided that if I was going to make this work I was going to have to put in a lot of time and effort so I went out on the road, selling our beer by the bottle and also working as a quantity surveyor part-time.

Loan

“Eighteen months later I had sold €150,000 worth of our beer and when I returned to the bank we were able to get a loan secured