The craft beer, brewery and distillery crusade continues…

I THINKit’s safe to say for an industry that started brewing only a short few years ago it has certainly fermented into something substantial. The sector is without question one of the biggest success stories to evolve, and thankfully its appeal shows no signs of drying up anytime soon.

A recent An Board Bia report identified 92 microbrewers in the Republic of Ireland which has more than quadrupled since 2012. Moreover, based on 2016 estimates, figures for craft beer production and consumption have risen six fold since 2012.

This is a crusade in every sense of the word for the sector started with optimistic expectations, but gradually became one of the leading lights in Ireland’s food and beverage sector with an estimated output of 197,000 hectolitres of craft beer produced in 2016 – a figure expected to rise in 2017.

You don’t need to be an economist to know this isn’t down to production alone for if demand didn’t exist, neither would output. But the public have been willing responders to the craft beer marketing drive and have supported the rise of craft beers almost everywhere that a microbrewery has been established. Part of the success for craft beer, as opposed to bigger international brand names, is the attention to detail microbreweries give to the locale.

Every bottle of craft beer has its own bespoke connection with the locality or region it’s brewed in. Add in the clever branding that uses the place names of ancient monuments, cultural icons and landscapes for labelling and you end up with a brew that, quite literally, is unique to the region. This appeals to locals and also to tourists as they want to feel like they are twinning a local beverage with locally sourced food. It’s a perfect match.

Kerry is no slouch when it comes to craft beers as local breweries in the Kingdom have prospered in recent years helping to generate employment. Kerry’s tourist market is also a major player and hotels, restaurants and local bars now have the option of a local brewery fermenting their very own bottled beer that is unique to their establishment’s name, which certainly makes sense from a marketing perspective.

Lastly, what many people won’t be aware of is that the rise in local breweries is, in essence, reverting back to an old tradition. Ale, Bitter and stout have a long tradition of being brewed locally and when the famous ‘Marshall Plan’ was enacted after WWII to inject some badly needed funds into the European economy, Ireland was identified as a country overly reliant on agriculture and brewing. What’s new is old as the saying goes.