The beers of Eire

Iorwerth Griffiths explains that there's more to Ireland than stout.

Then the words ‘beer’ and ‘Ireland’ are mentioned it is the black stuff – stout – that usually springs to mind and one brand in particular – Guinness. Thankfully, there’s a whole lot more to beer in Ireland than that.

Ireland is one of the world’s historic brewing nations and gave the world a distinctive style of beer known as dry stout. But history has not been kind to the breweries of Ireland and the emergence of craft brewing has been rather faltering. Despite this, Ireland is the home of some great beers and well worth a visit.

Stout became a feature of the Irish brewing scene in the port cities of Dublin and Cork in the late 1800s when domestic brewers rushed to copy the popular beer imported from England. However, it was soon given an Irish slant thanks to taxation. A tax on malt was imposed so brewers began to mix unmalted barley into their grist to cut their duty bill. This barley was roasted rather than malted and gave the finished beer the roasted dryness that is the hallmark of Irish dry stout.

However, stout is no longer the drink of choice in Ireland. Sales of stout are in decline and since 1999 less than one in two pints bought is a stout. Nevertheless it still retains an impressive 40 per cent of the market.

The 20th century saw the closure of most of the small breweries due to difficult trading conditions and Guinness monopolising the market. By 1980 eight breweries remained, five of which were either wholly or substantially owned by Guinness.

Craft brewi.....

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By Iorwerth Griffiths

Section : Regional Focus

Page number : 56