State of the craft beer market in Ireland

[irish_goat]

The time we all got the same beer and people reviewed it was a bit like that. Pity that never took off regularly.

We could give it a go again?

[Qs]

I'd be on for it anyway.

[irish_goat]

Feck it, let's go for it then. I'll start a thread.

[Andrew]

I think that list is pretty harsh. There are at least three breweries that have no place on that list. There are plenty of breweries that would end up ahead of it
I think the problem is that Ireland never had its growing up period. In the States there was 10 years between the first local breweries to the mad IPAs. We skipped that and there are plenty of money men who have no idea what the product is while the general population has not interest in craft beer as they weren't taken on the journey

Agreed- there's a few Brand-Before-Beer and "Meee Tooo"s that are not listed...

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

I know you didn't and I didn't say you that you did either.  My point was that the BJCP has the good sense to recognise that commercial brewers don't brew to style (howsoever defined), and we should follow their lead in this.

I'd be really interested to hear you expand on your concept of "archetypal examples".

BJCP Competition style guides are very far from an authority on beer styles and shouldn't be treated as such.

A beer style sets the customers expectations, which were established by experience with more widely available beers.

Czech Pilsner is recognisably different from other lagers, and PU, staropramen and budvar are the recognisable or archetypical commercial examples that define it.

Ditto Guinness, SNPA, London Pride, Westmalle Dubbel etc.

My original comment referred to Irish micros willingness to throw any style that will stick at their beers. You know there is nothing wrong with calling your beer a lager?

[mr hoppy]

I don't think you'd get far in a Prague pub if you asked for a pint of "your finest Czech pilsner".

If you've not seen it before you should have a look at this article by Martyn Cornell about how Michael Jackson invented beer styles in 1977.

My original comment referred to Irish micros willingness to throw any style that will stick at their beers.

Brewers have always done this, and do it everywhere that they aren't prohibited from doing so by law. If you expect them to match up to your preconceptions you will always be disappointed, and while I've also been disappointed by beers that didn't meet my expectations creativity and diversity are more important. For example, if O'Hara's had treated Guinness as an archetypal example there'd be no Lean Follain.

[Qs]

But O'Haras have a dry stout too. Its different from Guinness but still correctly labelled as an Irish Stout while LF is labelled as an extra stout. These labels make sense. Also there is a difference between being creative and working without boundaries and just making any old shite and throwing IPA on the label.

[cruiscinlan]

I think that list is pretty harsh. There are at least three breweries that have no place on that list. There are plenty of breweries that would end up ahead of it.

The reasons for the selection are given in the post, it's not good enough to make a good beer every third batch.  There are many missing because I make no claim to have tried every Irish made beer.

[mr hoppy]

But O'Haras have a dry stout too. Its different from Guinness but still correctly labelled as an Irish Stout while LF is labelled as an extra stout. These labels make sense.

Except none of these beers is actually described by its brewers as a dry stout and until recently bottled Guinness (at a whopping 4.1%) was labelled as extra stout.

As for making shite and throwing IPA on the label, I'd have thought making shite was the problem, not putting IPA on the label.

[irish_goat]

But O'Haras have a dry stout too. Its different from Guinness but still correctly labelled as an Irish Stout while LF is labelled as an extra stout. These labels make sense.

Except none of these beers is actually described by its brewers as a dry stout and until recently bottled Guinness (at a whopping 4.1%) was labelled as extra stout.

O'Haras call their one a dry Irish stout.

http://www.carlowbrewing.com/our-beers/oharas-irish-stout/?ao_confirm

[Qs]

As for making shite and throwing IPA on the label, I'd have thought making shite was the problem, not putting IPA on the label.

Maybe I should have said putting out some nondescript pale ale with fuck all bitterness or hop flavour and a shitty fermentation and slapping IPA on the label.

[mr hoppy]

It's not that long ago that all Irish beers labelled IPA pretty much fell into that category, plus or minus the shitty fermentation.

[Bazza]

I'm not in any way saying that we should be grateful or content with what we have out there now, but rewind back to 7 or 8 years ago, when there was a dearth of anything resembling pales, IPA's, etc in the local offies or pubs.

I remember as little as 4 years ago when, if I couldn't be bothered making the trip to the large Tesco or Sainsburys (usually because I'd get handed a large grocery list if I hinted I was going) the nearest thing to craft ales the local Winemark had to offer was Tetley effing bitter. Christ that stuff was muck. And all the bigger supermarkets were offering anyway was a lot of same-y English stuff such as Bishop's nose, Old Thumper's Scrotum, Peculiar Goat's Revenge and, God help us all - Greene King IPA!  Nowadays even the local Winemark has a reasonable selection of locals on the shelves such as Metalman, Bru, Boyne, Foxes Rock, etc. Now, while none of those will send the imagination or taste buds into hyperdrive, it's better than what was there before, and can only improve.

Same with pubs. While the majority of pubs outside of the larger towns still offer a piss poor choice, we are starting to make inroads in the larger towns to the point where I'm almost disappointed if all a bar has on offer is Whitewater, Hilden or even Brewdog. Not that I'm knocking any of those, but when you start getting a taste of how things could be you inevitably become more picky. Rural pubs are, more understandably, slower to adopt to change in their taps, mainly because their tie ins with your Heinos and Diageos of the world are still more cost-effective but also because many people still prefer their Guinness and their Coors Light, and prefer not to have twats like me rabbiting down their earhole about how the macros are awful and they're a fool for not paying half as much again for a pint of something that'll give them stomach cramp. In some cases we probably need more patience and subtlety.

I remember all I ever wished for was for here to be like England, with it's rows of different local taps in every pub you walked into... It must've been one of those cases where you confuse the past with a lovely dream; my last few visits across the water have been a sharp reality check in that the choice can be just as poor over there as it is here. As July and the inevitable rainy season approaches you start to wonder, WERE all summer holidays of old actually sunny all the time?

So yes, there's a lot of meh out there, and macros posing as 'craft'; they're a fact of life.  It's up to the likes of ourselves, and movements like Beoir to at least call them out for what they are, so they either fizzle out, up their game, or in the case of the macros, think of an even more devious way of consolidating their stranglehold on the market. The key point is that there's an increasing range of choice out there now. Granted 80% of it is still subpar but again, think back to how things were 7 or 8 years ago; we're at least stuttering in the right direction.

Okay; I've talked enough shite,

-Barry

[SlugTrap]

It's worth distinguishing between boring beer and bad beer.


If your business model is to brew for people who live within 10 miles of your brewery + have never tasted craft, then go ahead + brew a dull pale ale.
Everyone needs a gateway beer or a session pint.
I'm not the audience for Costello's, Mountain Man, or Wild Bat (to name three) so it doesn't matter if I think they're boring.

But if you have national distribution, it better not be another feckin' 4.2% APA with Cascade, if for no other reason than when there are 6 others like yours, you won't get the shelf space (I've heard this is already happening with retailers.)


Bad beer, there's just  no excuse - I'm looking at you, Pokertree - at any level.

[DEMPSEY]

Touche . Bad beer can happen in brewers from time to time but consistent bad beer is just being obstinate. We all have experienced bad beers and some brewers make an art form of doing it but others quietly take on board the criticism and work to improve their offerings. I personally don't buy beers from some brewers but as an optimistic person if someone tells me a brewer has upped their game I will return to try again.