Best Overall Beer Award

Beer is one of the great levellers of
Irish society – even the Taoiseach
is fond of a pint every now and
then – and while the recession
has dented our willingness to go out as
often as we once did, the total beer
market in Ireland still stands at €3.2
billion a year, of which the on-trade
accounts for 68 per cent. And, according
to a recent study by research firm TRI,
we know a good pint when we see one:
37 per cent of us think it’s worth paying
extra for a good-quality beer.

However, according to the Drinks
Industry Group of Ireland, beer sales
volumes fell by 5 per cent in 2008, not as
much as cider (11 per cent) or spirits (7.7
per cent), but still worrying, especially
when taken alongside the fact that bar
sales of alcohol dropped by an estimated
9 per cent last year. That duty on alcohol
wasn’t increased in the most recent
Budget is partly a blessing, but it doesn’t
disguise the fact that 1,500 pubs have
closed across Ireland in the past six years.
But could beer, and an inventive beer
portfolio, offer a means of additional
revenue for smaller, rural pubs? Cuilan
Loughnane certainly thinks so. He’s the
master brewer at Messrs Maguire
Brewery in Dublin, one of a series of
microbreweries enjoying renewed
recognition around the country.

At the recent Porterhouse All-Ireland Beer & Whiskey Festival, Loughnane’s latest
creation, Bock Ale, scooped the Overall
Champion Beer award, and the brewer
believes that investing in smaller, locally
produced beer can create a real point of
difference for struggling pubs.

“A cousin of mine runs a pub in
Borrisoleigh, in County Tipperary, a
town with a population of 500 to 600
tops,” Loughnane explains, “and he has a
cask ale on sale, with one of the oldfashioned hand pumps. He’s the only guyin the country selling it, and he’s going
through a keg a week because it’s a real
alternative. It’s created an incredible buzz
– a busload of 35 Americans dropped by
the other day, just for the experience.”
Loughnane believes that while Ireland
was once awash with specialty and local
beers, 50 or 60 years ago, at some stage
“we seemed to be happy to sit back and
settle for whatever the major brewers
were giving us. There’s a whole
generation of people who have grown up
in Ireland without any knowledge of
what real beer can be about.” It took the
arrival of Polish and other European
nationalities to Ireland for pubs to open
up to the idea of stocking speciality beers
from overseas, Loughnane believes,
which, in turn, led to a resurgence in the
microbrewery movement. “That had a
knock-on effect for us in the microbrewing industry. Over the lastcouple of years we’ve seen year-on-yeargrowth, while all the big guys are eitherholding steady or declining. It’s really taken off in the past six to eight months.We were all worried about the recession, but it’s had the opposite effect. People are starting to try local products, supportlocal industry.”

However, for a nation comfortable with a host of recognisable brands –
Guinness, Smithwick’s, Heineken,
Carlsberg et al – Loughnane believes Irish
drinkers still have a way to go before
fully adopting the microbrewery concept.
“The initial reaction of the public is still
pretty poor, to be honest with you. We’ve got a new brewery in Templemore, and one of our first challenges is going to be to create an entry-level beer for people who are used to the taste of the big brands. People areconditioned, and sometimes if you give them something with a lot of flavour, it turns them off. It’s an educational thing.”

Of course, the major brewers in the Irish pub trade also acknowledge the importance of bringing customers back to the bar stool. With this in mind, late last year, the Irish BrewersAssociation (which represents brewers responsible for 85 per cent of all beer consumed in Ireland, such as Diageo Ireland, Heineken Ireland and InBev) launched Beer

Naturally, a campaign focused on enabling the Irish consumer to better understand the qualities of beer, how to match it with food and so forth.

“Our research tells us that 60 per cent of tourists ate in pubs last year, making pubs the biggest sellers not just of drink, but also of food, to visitors to Ireland,” explains Stephen Lynam, senior executive at the Irish Brewers Association.

“It’s simply about tapping into that. Beer is the most popular drink sold in pubs, and it makes total sense to link that to food. The groundwork has already been done in smaller pubs. You don’t have to be a flashy gastropub to be part of this campaign. Even if you don’t serve food, the campaign is about making people understand how beer is developed, from its four main ingredients: barley, hops, yeast and water.”

The Independent Irish Beer & Whiskey Festival, in The Porterhouse.

Lynam agrees that a better understanding of beer can help make life easier for recession-battered publicans. As well as a website, beernaturally.ie, the campaign has also produced an advice booklet for pubs, and is hosting tasting events in the Bull
and Castle, Dublin, and the Boardwalk, Lapps Quay, Cork.

“As more and more pubs are looking at expanding their food options and creating a less alcohol-intensive environment, there’s
a real opportunity to begin looking at beer in a new way. The whole added-value concept is very important. Alcohol consumption is down overall, but beer sales are holding pretty
steady. Pubs are under pressure, and our campaign is geared towards helping them recover.”

The Big Boys
Ireland’s beer market continues to be dominated by a few major players, most notably Guinness, which, despite the looming
recession, saw on-trade sales grow by 1 per cent in the six months to the end of 2008, to 31.1 per cent – in other words, one pint in three sold in an Irish pub is a pint of Guinness.

Guinness’s net sales grew 2 per cent. Carlsberg and Budweiser,
distributed in Ireland by Diageo, also saw growth, with Carlsberg growing by 0.6 per cent in the on-trade. Budweiser enjoyed a regional boost, thanks to the release of Budweiser Ice
Cold, as trials in Wexford and Carlow delivered a 26 per cent increase in total draught Budweiser volume over a six-month
period – a trend that is likely to continue as the product is rolled out nationwide.

In the North, meanwhile, Harp gained share in
the key Northern Ireland on-trade, following the successful launch of Harp Ice Cold. Diageo continues to establish its position at the head of the total alcoholic drinks market in Ireland, with 40 per cent of the market.

Fellow monolith Heineken enjoys a17.3 per cent share of Ireland’s total beer
market, marginally increasing its share of
the Irish lager market to 28.4 per cent last
year. Turnover at Heineken Ireland
remained static, at €346 million, while
company sales volumes fell by 1 per cent
– this despite Heineken’s takeover of
Beamish & Crawford last year, which put
the Cork stout into the same portfolio as
its closest rival, Murphy’s. A Heineken
spokesperson added that this year’s
performance would be “difficult to call”,
given the present economic climate.
In terms of speciality beers, few
companies are as devoted to the cause as
Noreast, importers of Budejovicky
Budvar, Asahi, Krombacher, Erdinger
and a range of ales that includes
Bishop’s Finger, Celebration, Spitfire, St
Peter’s and Newcastle Brown Ale. Unlike
in the UK, the ale market is one that is
still in its infancy in Ireland, and Noreast
will be looking to develop sales further
as customers learn to appreciate
speciality beers.
Noreast are also leading the charge for
the non-alcoholic beer marker, with its
Erdinger Alcohol-Free, which has had a
huge impact on the market and has given
the entire category a new lease of life.
Erdinger have developed a unique
brewing process whereby the beer can be
brewed to a very low level of alcohol
without compromising the full wheat beer
flavour. Most alcohol-free beers are
brewed to full strength and then go
through a “dialysis” process which strips
out the alcohol, and, in most cases, the
flavour. Erdinger Alcohol Free, by
contrast, tastes as good as the original.
A brand that is enjoying a new lease of
life this year is Bavaria, distributed in
Ireland by the Gleeson Group, which this
year is expected to demonstrate further growth through trade promotions,
consumer promotions and a new TV
advertising campaign this summer. A 4.3
per cent draught, Bavaria has been
brewed in Holland since 1719 using
natural mineral water from its own wells
and malt from its own malting house, the
second-biggest malthouse in Europe.
Bavaria continues to rank highly in taste
tests, is priced competitively, and offers
consumers and publicans a real
alternative to mainstream beers.