The West Kerry Brewery is a short distance from Baker’s but it’s a different world. Suddenly you’re in an Irish-speaking area where the correct name for Adrienne Heslin’s tiny plant is Beoir Chorca Duibhne. Heslin opened her brewery in 2008 and she produces just 600 pints per brew. The beers are available in bottle or cask conditioned on hand pump next door in the Tig Bhric (Brick) pub or at Kane’s bar in neighboring Ballyferriter. Her cask Porter (4.2%, also bottled at 5%), is aged for six weeks and is worth making the trip to the very edge of the British Isles. It has a smoked malt, licorice, bitter chocolate, espresso and burnt fruit character with spicy hops. Her Golden Ale, in sharp contrast, is a fruit salad of a beer with grapefruit and peach on the palate, balanced by peppery hops. Cúl Dorcha is an amber ale with roasted and toasted malt, a hint of chocolate and peppery hops.
Cuilán Loughnane at White Gypsy Brewery at Templemore learned his brewing skills in Canada and opened his plant three years ago. The kit was built by the Munich brewer Paulaner for a company in Singapore and was designed to produce wheat beer. Loughnane is a passionate believer in brewing with local ingredients. He uses Irish malt and is developing his own hop field alongside, though torrential rain in 2012 ruined the crop and he currently imports Bramling Cross, Fuggles, Goldings and Northdown varieties from England.
His 10-hecto plant produces Ruby Ale, Imperial Russian Stout and a German-style strong Doppelbock lager. The stunningly complex Russian Stout (7%) is brewed with smoked malt and roasted barley alongside pale malt and is hopped with Bramling Cross and Northdown. It has a big peppery hops nose with blackcurrant fruit, bitter chocolate, espresso coffee and smoky, roasted grain on aroma and palate. He plans to add a vintage Irish stout that will be matured in oak casks and brewed with peated malt.
Loughnane sell his beers to 30 outlets in the area and, in tune with his “keep it local” outlook, he doesn’t want to go further afield.
The vibrant and dramatic revival of small-scale, independent brewing in Ireland is supported by a small but active beer drinkers’ movement called Beoir, the Irish for beer (www.beoir.org). John Duffy, the driving force of the group, says: “We’re not yet at the stage where hand-crafted beer can be found on every bar in the land, nor even in most towns yet. But, bit by bit, with support from the discerning drinkers seeking something a little better than the average, things are on the up.”
