Club Profile: South Kildare Brewers

Organisers: Brenmurph & Kellie

Brendan’s profile
Brewing since 1978 at the tender age of 16 (35 years ago) using basic equipment and beer kits. Beer was always good and drinkable although things have come along way since then. Originally back to the 70’s and 80’s, a group of Brendan’s work colleagues met every Friday at his house, played darts, played cards and drank homebrew. Contributions of ten pound each covered the cost of the beer & food and the darts winner and cards winner got their tenner back, which always ensured a great night. Today we do it on a greater scale and a more comprehensive and all encompassing way.

Professionally, Brendan is a Nutrition and Health professional with a massive focus on healthy eating and sensible drinking. Brendan holds a Master of Science Degree in Exercise & Nutrition as well as numerous other nutrition related qualifications. Focus is always on high quality nutrition and lifestyle. As an ongoing professional in nutrition science field it is both a passion and a hobby to know more about every aspect of beer from growing our own hops to producing unusual beers using fresh, all Irish ingredients when possible and using home grown products e.g., Spruce tree, beetroot, hops, myrtle, nettles and fruit.

Kellie’s profile
Kellie works for the National Health Services and holds an Honours Degree in Health & Social care. Kellie wasn’t interested in brewing till recent years when she acquired an interest through the homebrew club by tasting on a regular basis the fruits of Brendan’s brew days. Kellie is currently enrolled on the BJCP beer-judge program to push her knowledge of all things beer in the right direction. Thanks to Kellie, our Brewday-guests enjoy top class food since she happened into the role of chief cook due to popular demand in addition to her being hands on with the daily brew tasks, gladly including regular brew progress tasting.

Our facility
Today our home brewery is active, possibly the most active in the country because we brew continuously, by that we mean every week and most days there are brew tasks.

This year with the help of our guests produced a Spruce lager from our own tree, which was excellent and well received, this was brewed on one of our June events where the guests harvested the spruce, taking an hour or so to collect. Other unusual brews this year were Beetroot, Liquorice, 100% Irish ale and lagers, fresh hop ales and Christmas spiced ales and lagers …… all this of course in addition to normal ales, lagers & stouts.

Currently we are hosting multiple events per month at our fabulous venue. We have facility for overnight stays, camping, local B&B at very reasonable cost and high quality toilet & shower facilities, electric hook up, water and free wifi for campers.

We have spacious grounds, gardens and polytunnel to add some interest to your visit and our brew house / brew set-up is nicely integrated into our house where brew day guests are made very welcome.

Women please note ……………
While in Kildare you don’t have to hang around all day beside a brew kettle. Kildare is a historic town featuring the Irish national stud, (10 min walk) Kildare town and cathedral (10 min walk) Kildare Village shopping outlet (8 minute walk) and a couple of good craft pubs and good food restaurants.

Brew days
We normally but not exclusively have brewing on our meet ups. Occasionally we have a meet where we don’t brew but we still engage in all things brewing e.g. showing latest gadgets and brew systems that we manufacture or modify to suit our needs. We also produce wine and cider and always have good wine in bottle or keg to sample.

Brew days start at midday by grinding the grain having formulated a recipe on our Beersmith software. We then progress through all the fascinating steps of the brew process culminating in someone pitching the magic ingredient (yeast) at the end of the brew day. Guests normally help design or come with a brew idea and we always try making something unusual.

Vision
We aim to continue to grow our group of enthusiasts and keep engaging in this healthy and socially stimulating hobby while keeping a clear focus on healthy eating, healthy & sensible drinking and healthy lifestyle. Although there are many female members and visitors, we want to see more women/ wives/ and girlfriends involved in this wonderful hobby!

Don’t be shy get over to us and have a chat or come along to an event. There are no costs to guests, however we really appreciate small contributions of cakes, food, or beers to add to the taster line-up.

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