"Recent" Irish brewery openings - list

[KeeganAles]

Since there's a thread going on future brewery openings, it seemed like a good time to get one on past openings, too.
If we don't write all this stuff down now, we'll end up forgetting it, or at least arguing about it a lot.

This list was pre-approved by TBN so it shouldn't be too far off the truth.
The arbitrary starting point is the current wave of craft breweries. The boom and bust of the 90s can be documented somewhere else.
Cuckoo brewers are in, but brewers who never brewed in Ireland (like Strangford Lough) or never operated as a true business (like Big Hand) are out.
The year is the first time somebody could drink a beer from that brewery, not the year the incorporation papers were signed.

Anybody has corrections, shout it out.

2006: Hooker
2007: White Gypsy
2008: Beoir Chorca Dhuibhne (West Kerry Brewery)
2009: Inishmacsaint, Galway Bay, Trouble, Clanconnel
2010: Dungarvan, Metalman
2011: Eight Degrees, Dingle, Burren, Ards, Bo Bristle (as Breweyed)
2012: Kinnegar, Brown Paper Bag, 5 Lamps, Elbow Lane, Donegal, 7 Windows
2013: Red Hand

[TheBeerNut]

This list was pre-approved by TBN so it shouldn't be too far off the truth.

Oh thanks very much. May I just add that it wasn't without compromise on some points and that the list is still very much KeeganAles's fault.

Seriously though, good idea to have this. I tried to do one for the 1990s and it's pretty tough.

[noby]

Trouble made their debut alongside us at Easterfest in 2010.
Pretty sure Metalman was 2011.

[noby]

Oh, and nice idea, by the way.

[Wallacebiy]

Trouble made their debut alongside us at Easterfest in 2010.
Pretty sure Metalman was 2011.

Yup that'd be my recollection too

[andrew]

Just for completeness:

Porterhouse Brewing: 1989
Carlow Brewing: 1996

[BiddyEarly]

And for the oldtimers:

1995
Biddy Early Brewery
Porterhouse Mk2
Irish Brewing Company

1996
Dublin Brewing Company

1997
Celtic Brew / Twinmeadows

1998
Carlow Brewing Company
Fransiscan Well
Dwans
Messrs Maguires

1999
Balbriggan Brewing Company

2001
Kinsale Brewing Company

Emerald Brewery ?

[TheBeerNut]

Ooo, scope creep.

CRO records show late 1997 for Dwan's, so presumably there was beer in 1998. Likewise Celtic Brew is 1999.

Did Balbriggan and Emerald ever actually produce beer for sale?

[BiddyEarly]

If you're going to start a job, finish it....
List updated for dates and one omission (Kinsale).

Balbriggan did sell beer briefly. I am not certain re Emerald - they brewed and bottled it, and I tasted it, but didn't pay for it!

[TheBeerNut]

If you're going to start a job, finish it

Dempsey's features in Kevin Myers's Irishman's Diary column on 21 February 1984. The Irish Times carried an ad for the brewery, for sale as a going concern, on 11 August 1986.

Dates for Harty's, anyone?

[KeeganAles]

If you're going to start a job, finish it....

I didn't go there for one simple reason: if you're going to have opening dates for defunct breweries than you should really have closing dates as well.

Anybody want to have a go at that?

[DrJohn]

Dempsey's and Harty's are both listed as opening and "closing shortly afterwards" in 1982-1983 (source: Brewers & Malsters Guild of Ireland blurb from 1998).

[DrJohn]

Biddy Early was still open towards in 2007 at least.

As for Emerald; I don't believe they ever went as far as selling beer. I recall Aidan or Ronan saying they found plenty of Emerald beer labels in the place when they first went, but no bottles!

Dwans closed 2003, Balbriggan closed 2005.

[TheBeerNut]

I think Dublin Brewing ceased production in late 2004. I was buying the last bottles of Beckett's in Redmonds in July 2005.

[Dunkel]

Dempsey's and Harty's are both listed as opening and "closing shortly afterwards" in 1982-1983 (source: Brewers & Malsters Guild of Ireland blurb from 1998).

Just seen this thread. As far as I can recall, Harty's opened in 1983. I was working as a brewer in Swannell's , a short-lived micro in Hertfordshire, England up until May of that year. Oliver Hughes also worked there for a couple of months, and asked me to come over to Ireland and work with him for a short period while himself and Liam LaHart set the brewery up. The brewery was just an empty industrial unit in May 83, but the equipment had been ordered, and the first beer went into local Blessington pubs around August 83 (I may be mistaken with some of these dates, after all it is thirty years ago, but they're not too far off).
Dempsey's had been set up the previous year by Liam O'Dwyer (the publican of Mount Street) with a consortium of businessmen. In answer to another poster, Dempsey's were a stand-alone brewery in Inchicore. By June 83 their brewer had left, so myself and Oliver were working on secondment for Dempsey's, on the beer production side. I left Harty's in 84, and joined Dempsey's. I remember taking Dempsey's beer up to the Hilden beer festival in 84. I think Harty's closed in 84, and Dempsey's 85.
But why not just ask Oliver Hughes?