Donegal Brewing Company is a small brewery in the town of Ballyshannon in the Northwest of Ireland.
PUB, OFF-LICENCE OR BREWERY?
Brendan O’Reilly had no choice, really. He was always going to end up working with beer.
Dicey Reilly’s bar has been in his family for almost 40 years. In the 1980s, they opened an Off-Licence at the end of the bar counter which had its own entrance and they began to develop a deeper understanding of the products they were serving. This developed into a purpose built Off-Licence adjacent to the existing bar in 2003.
“The bar was in the family for 39 years and we opened an Off-Licence around 25 years ago that was a small hatch off the end of the bar and had a separate entrance,” says Brendan. “Around that time, we started experimenting with different beers, mainly mainstream beers, anything at all we could get our hands on up here in Donegal. We tried out different things with our customers and it developed from that, I suppose.”
To say that their Off-Licence has become a success would be an understatement. They have won the Connacht/Ulster Off-Licence of the Year Award every year bar one since 2004 and they have been awarded the coveted National Off-Licence of the Year Award in the last two consecutive years, 2013 and 2014.
“We’re absolutely delighted that we’re the winners of the National Off-Licence of the Year 2013 and 2014,” says Brendan. “We were Connacht-Ulster winners for eight years before that. I suppose being involved in the awards has helped us create a blueprint for the business so we can keep our standards high and push the business forward. To think that up here in Donegal we could win the National Off-Licence of the year, and to look back over the previous winners, it’s a real privilege.”
The next thing to do, I suppose, would be to brew your own beer.
BLONDES HAVE MORE FUN IN DONEGAL
The Donegal Blonde is designed to be a crossover beer.
It’s a golden ale of 4.2% ABV of sessionable character.
“We chose the Donegal Blonde at the start because we thought that it would be an entry level craft beer,” says Brendan. “With a lower hop and flavour profile we thought it would be an easy side step for anybody drinking a lager. We felt it would be the best way to bring them on to the craft beer ladder.”
That approach has worked commercially, with the Donegal Blonde taking off both locally and nationally and putting Donegal Brewing Company on the Irish beer map.
So, just how do you build a brewery in Donegal?
DONEGAL BREWING COMPANY
Considerable thought has clearly gone into the creation of this brewery.
Brendan learned about beer styles and new breweries when running the Off-Licence over many years.
He has been studying brewing since 1997, first through BrewLab in the Porterhouse in Dublin and many other courses along the way. He also consulted with experienced brewer, Bernard Sloan, of Whitewater Brewing Company in Co. Down for the design and fit of the brewery.
Donegal Brewing Company was set up in the beer garden of Dicey Reilly’s pub, an Irish built custom job, tailor made to fit the space. After one small trial batch, they were straight into full commercial production.
Brendan is ably assisted by his brewing colleague, Patrick Gallagher (pictured above pouring for guests).
“We have our own yeast culture unique to the brewery which we had propagated up initially and which we’ve been using since,” says Patrick. “We use that in every brew. Unfortunately hops don’t grow in any way commercially in Ireland so like most breweries, we import from hop merchants in the UK. And we get a lot of specialty grains from all around the world to offer us different flavours and different styles of beer.”
WILD ATLANTIC ALE ON THE WILD ATLANTIC WAY
After the success of the Donegal Blonde, Brendan and Patrick turned their attention to creating a second beer.
“With an Off-Licence attached to the pub and brewery which stocks over 500 different craft beers, we see at the moment that amber ales are quite sought after, so we decided to develop our own amber ale,” says Brendan. “That’s where the idea came for our second beer.”
The beer itself – the Atlantic Amber – is a copper/reddish ale of 4.5% ABV. The dramatic oncoming wave depicted on the label of the bottle was designed by a local artist and gives the beer its name.
“We called it Atlantic because, obviously, we’re beside the Atlantic”, he says. “It’s only half a mile away from us here where the brewery is situated.”
SURFING THE WAVE OF ‘CRAFT’ BEER: THE SEA SESSIONS
Brendan spoke with the organisers of The Sea Sessions Music and Surfing Festival in neighbouring Bundoran and it was decided that Donegal Brewing Company would brew a special one-off beer for the festival: their Sea Sessions Pale Ale, an American-style Pale Ale of 4.5% a.b.v. which celebrates the vibrant surf lifestyle available all year round in this part of Donegal.
O’Hara’s were the main sponsors of The Sea Sessions. “It was great to be invited to pour alongside O’Hara’s at one of the largest Music Festivals in the North West,” says Brendan. “We had a fantastic weekend with good music, great beers, lots of surf and, of course, the Irish sunshine!”
FESTIVAL COLLABORATION: ‘NORTH AND SOUTH OF THE RIVER’
Not content with a pub, an Off-Licence and a brewery, Brendan decided to organise his own beer festival in Dicey Reilly’s on the 2014 Bank Holiday August weekend (1-3 August 2014). He called it the Wild Atlantic Craft Beer Festival.
The aim of the festival was to showcase and celebrate the very best in local craft beer, Irish music and Irish artisanal food, particularly from the North West of Ireland.
Donegal Brewing Company went about making sure the occasion was extra special by embarking on another special festival collaborative brew, this time with Gordon Fallis of Inishmacsaint Brewing Company.
The story of their collaboration beer – ‘North and South of the River’ – is tied to the geography of the region and the history of the area. The breweries are located in neighbouring parishes on either side of the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.
Inishmacsaint sits on a farm just outside the village of Derrygonnelly in Co. Fermanagh on the south bank of the Erne (in the ‘North’) while Ballyshannon puts Donegal Brewing Company on the north bank of the Erne (in the ‘South’).
It is a beer, therefore, produced by two small breweries ‘North and South of the River’.
Although the story of the beer encapsulates the history of the area, from the time when the monks of Inishmacsaint Island on Lough Erne made the short trip to Assaroe abbey in Ballyshannon, the style of the beer is more modern, an American style pale ale with generous late additions and dry hopping with Cascade and Pallisade hops.
PLANS FOR THE FUTURE
Demand for Irish craft beer is growing all the time. “We now have over 125 Irish craft beers and ciders in the Off-Licence,” says Brendan.
Dicey’s Off-Licence are also installing a growler system after Christmas. “This will enable us to sell the Irish craft beer that is only available right now in kegs to customers in growlers,” he says.
Donegal Brewing Company also hosted a ‘General Certificate in Brewing’ course a few weeks ago with Master Brewer, Tim O’Rourke from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling who travelled to Donegal from the UK to facilitate a week long course.
“It was a great success with participants from Sligo, Leitrim, Kerry, Cork, Dublin, Kildare, Kilkenny, Cavan and of course Donegal taking part,” he says. “On the back of the success we will have Tim O’Rourke back over in the new year to facilitate other 1 and 2 day courses including the ‘How to Judge Beer’ courses.”
Do Brendan and Donegal Brewing Company have anything else up their sleeve for 2015? “We are adding two more beers to our range”, Brendan tells me. “The Donegal Porter and the Donegal Pale Ale will be here in the coming weeks so I’m looking forward to getting the customers’ reaction to them!”
WHAT ABOUT BELGIAN BLONDES?
Glancing around the two storey Off-Licence on my way out, I wonder whether the people of Ballyshannon ever opt for the quite impressive range of Belgian beers I see on the shelves.
“It’s a gradual thing over time”, Brendan tells me. “There is a niche market now for Belgian beers. But the biggest market at the minute here is for Irish craft beer, the newest thing on the market and the newest style. As it develops, people will branch off from that and try different beers from different parts of the world.”
So, the good folk of Ballyshannon may yet discover beers from Belgium.
In the meantime, they’re enjoying their time with the Donegal Blonde.
