Feature: Craft beer makers looking to brew with Irish ingredients
Hardly any Irish beers are made with Irish-grown ingredients but that’s all about to change, says Oliver Moore.
Hops, malting barley, water and yeast. That’s the basis of beer. And yet, despite our beer tradition, hardly any Irish craft beers are made exclusively with Irish-grown ingredients. Why?
There is much to be said for craft beers and what they bring to rural areas, such as employment in brewing and bottling; and a better taste experience for locals and visitors alike.
Many craft breweries are in economically challenged rural areas, including counties Longford, Leitrim, Mayo, west Offaly, north Tipperary and west Kerry.
“I think most small breweries would love to brew with more Irish malt and hops,” says Marcus Robinson from Reel Deel Brewery in Mayo.
“There is no excuse for not using Irish base malt, but there are no Irish produced speciality malts yet. Equally, there are no commercially available Irish hops,” he says.
Though it inevitably varies, for craft beers, Irish base malt makes up about 70%, while the remaining 30% is imported specialist malt, plus a small portion of hops.
Multinationals buy almost exclusively Irish, purchasing over 200,000 tonnes of malting barley annually.
“Heineken Ireland continues to buy 100% of our malted barley from Irish farmers. This represents 98% of our total cereal purchases. Of the remaining 2%, we are hoping to purchase our malted wheat, currently purchased in the UK, from Irish farmers next year,” says Kathryn D’Arcy, corporate affairs director with Heineken Ireland.
As for hops, Heineken Ireland also imports.
Susan and Judith Boyle run Two Sisters Brewing in Kildare. They make Brigid’s Ale and run the family pub and off-licence. Susan is one of Ireland’s only qualified beer sommeliers.
With Irish hops, says Susan, “Moulds and mildews are a problem due to our humid climate. Hop-growing is a specialist activity and even if some people are successfully cultivating hops here, getting them tested so that you know the chemical make-up of hop and what they will release in a brew is another story.”
Another technical limitation is that, “most breweries are set up for using hop pellets rather than whole fresh cones or flowers.”
She also says that Irish hops would inevitably have a more limited flavour profile than globally sourced hops.
For base malt, craft breweries source from either the Malting Company of Ireland in Co Cork, or Minch in Co Kildare. The Cork-based company says 7% of its sales go to the craft beer sector, but these sales are growing at an average of 50% per annum.
Two Sisters Brewing sources its base malt from Minch in Athy.
“Athy is only 15 miles down the road from us in Kildare town. Minch is really interesting, as they have complete traceability on their production line, so you can follow the barley from field to bag, and you know exactly where the barley you are using was grown.
“They also malt small batches of barley, so people who grow their own barley can have it malted, and can brew with the malt,” she says.
Paddy McDonald is brewer at the 12 Acres Brewing Company. They use their own malted barley from the family farm in Killeshin, Co Laois, for their Pale Ale. Their 100-acre farm produces about 300 tonnes of malting barley.
This is divided between Guinness and 12 Acres (Minch malts the barley separately for McDonald).
Since last August, the 12 Acres on-farm microbrewery in a converted sheep shed produced 6,000 litres of beer a month. Nevertheless, like other craft brewers, 12 Acres still imports specialist malt, and hops.
“Minch take 100 tonnes of our barley, the typical batch size. They store and dry it separately, it goes into dormancy for months, then it comes out of dormancy.
“They bring it to process it in a single batch. When barley goes into maltings, it’s tested for protein and moisture, and screened.
Each 30-tonne load is tested going in. If it doesn’t reach the specs, it doesn’t go in. We’ve never had a fail.
“We take back what we need for our own beers, and they sell the rest on. We have to buy a year’s supply up front,” says Mr McDonald.
Like White Gypsy, Wicklow Wolf Brewery makes a seasonal beer using 100% Irish ingredients. It uses Irish malt and its own hops from the family farm in Roundwood. Each year, different hops are planted (such as cascade, perle, nugget, chinook, fuggles, prima donna), and each year the beer tastes differently.
“Every year we harvest at the end of September and early October, and then we brew straight away. We don’t dry or store, we make a fresh hop ale. The hops are added within 24 hours of picking,” says Quincy Fennelly of Wicklow Wolf.
“The traditional English hop varieties grow best, as we’ve a similar environment.
“That said, we’ve a modified cascade, a US variety, and that does well for us too. This is our fourth year, every year it’s improved.
“The weather has an effect of course, better weather gives a better yield and better quality.”
“We plan to do a hop- harvesting festival on the farm this year. We’ll have a few beers and music and show people what’s involved. It’s about building up our community of followers.”
Beer meitheals, then, may be what it takes to get the fully 100% Irish craft beers flowing. Who’s willing to step up?
Brewers should be ‘jumping on’ specialised malt
Cuilan Loughnane of White Gypsy in Co Tipperary is a driving force in the craft beef sector. He is a director with the Independent Craft Brewers of Ireland, which last year introduced a distinctive label for craft beers which are not owned by multinationals.
A conversation between the Templemore man and his local TD, Alan Kelly, following an Irish Food Writers Guild award to Loughnane, led to the Craft Beer Drinks Bill 2016.
If Mr Kelly’s Bill passes, this will allow craft breweries to sell their own beers from their premises during work hours.
“Ireland is one of the best places in the world to grow malt, in terms of size and quality. But the barley that’s grown for the two big brewers is all about sugar, not flavour or quality” says Mr Loughnane.
This led him to make an arrangement with Minch to get malt from “the dozen best growers in Ireland, in Hook Head”, set aside for craft brewers.
In this arrangement, the Minch No 3 storage bin, which takes 70 tonnes at a time, supplies craft brewers.
“Any craft brewer who wants part of the 70 tonnes can get it, and already half a dozen or more are using it.
“Kinnegar, White Hag, 12 Acres, O Brother, Metalman, West Kerry, ourselves, we’re seeing the quality coming through. Brewers should be jumping on it.”
“The next stage is to work on the varieties themselves. So we’ll have to develop breeding programmes,” he says.
“We’re starting to see a resurgence in malt varieties elsewhere. Hopefully, we’ll see that happening here in Ireland. This would put us on the world stage. US malt isn’t good, they want European malt,” he says.
White Gypsy’s Emerald beer uses all Irish ingredients, with Hook Head malt and hops that Mr Loughnane himself grew.
Growing your own hops for beer is not yet cost-effective: “We’re trying to get an industry going that died out,” he says.
“We want a sustainable craft beer industry, so we need a supply of ingredients, and we’re willing to pay a little extra if it’s good quality.”
