WHEN I first started going to pubs back in Liverpool in around 1980, the choice was, let’s say, 'limited'. There was lager or bitter. Cider came in bottles. Old men drank Guinness or 'mild'.
You could have combinations – cocktails is pushing it a bit – which came with fancy names: a mix of lager and bitter was a pint of Golden, or an "effin Scouse drink" as a Geordie charmer told me in my first week away at university.
Mild and bitter was a Black and Tan. Asking for that could quieten the crowd.
A snakebite was cider and lager, if I remember rightly, which I don’t, because I had some once. Whatever you had, you had a pint of it. And you just drank it. Tasting hadn’t been invented yet.
It’s all different now. In recent years, a craft beer revolution has been sweeping Ireland, north and south, leaving drinkers with both an almost overwhelming choice and a new way of experiencing their beverages.
Nowhere is this more apparent than at Brewbot, on Belfast’s Ormeau Road. One of Belfast’s newest bars, it is dedicated solely to craft beers.
On the shelves behind the bar, the drinks are arranged according to type and style, starting with pale ales, and moving from there to IPAs, double IPAs, triple IPAs, amber ales, red ales, Belgians, saisons, sours, stouts and right through to porters, with a sprinkle of wheats and blondes along the way.
Their beer menu is a little shorter than Anna Karenina, but has a happier ending.
The beers come from around the globe but, with each week, more and more of them are coming from small northern breweries. The Northern Ireland branch of the Campaign for Real Ale lists 22 small, independent craft breweries. Some have been around for a while now: Hilden was established in 1981, and Whitewater in 1996.
Out of the others, however, the longest-established are Clanconnel (2008) and Inishmacsaint (2009). Ards came along in 2011, while 2013 saw the birth of Sheelin, Clearsky, Poker Tree, Farmageddon, and Red Hand.
In the past year, Hercules, Glens of Antrim, Hillstown, Cumberland/Station Works, Cloughmore, Barrahooley, Knockout, Boundary, Mourne Mountains, Walled City, and Northbound have all come to the party, while Lacada is arriving fashionably late this coming autumn.
And they’re spread right across the north – in Waringstown, Kilkeel, Lisburn, Belfast, Derrygonnelly, Bellanaleck, Derry, Donaghmore, Murlough. Chances are, if you don’t have a craft brewery close by you today, you will have next week.
It’s a fascinating trend: an ancient product made in small quantities, with time and care and patience and an emphasis on quality. Concern for locality is key, but attitudes aren’t parochial. And while there’s a real respect for tradition and craft, the very latest technology is often used to enhance production.
The Brewbot Bar itself grew out of technological innovation. The co-founders – Jonny Campbell, Chris McClelland, Kieran Graham, and Ali Cisk – were app designers with a raging thirst.
Work finished early on a Friday afternoon, and batches of home brew, made in plastic buckets, were shared around. During their downtime at a creatives’ conference in the United States in 2012, the team visited local bars and were amazed at the range – and taste – of craft beers available.
Three years down the line, they now produce the Brewbot – a brewing robot, a unit finished in wood and stainless steel, small enough and stylish enough to fit into most kitchens, that employs state-of-the-art electronics and digital design to allow users to produce their own beer to their exact requirements, configuring fluids, temperature, and time from their smart phones.
As well as the craft beer, they also sell their Brewbots, for either domestic or small commercial use.
“With both the beers we sell and the Brewbot itself, we want to re-introduce choice for drinkers,” says Chris McClelland.
“The emergence of so many craft breweries allows people to reconnect with the process. The beers are local. They tell stories and have meaning. We want to do the right thing by beer, and also to tell people they can go do their own thing.”
That is exactly what husband and wife team, David and Martina Rogers, did in founding Northbound Brewery beside Enagh Lough, near Derry.
That was in 2012, when the couple returned to Northern Ireland after nine years in Australia. David had worked in a brewery there, developing a love and understanding of the brewing process and becoming an Institute of Brewing and Distilling Master Brewer.
“We started Northbound out of a love of beer and because we’re passionate about crafting natural beers that are unpasteurised and unfiltered and full of flavour,” says Martina.
“It’s a great industry – creative, sociable, fun, a real down-to-earth sector.”
Having moved premises to Campsie, they have taken on extra staff to cope with increasing export and local demand, but have still managed to maintain the better life balance that they aimed for when they first started, while doing something they truly believe in.
“Consumers in Northern Ireland have a strong desire to buy local produce and are more aware of where their food and drink comes from. Craft beer is made by hand, locally, where the owner is the brewer. A lot of love and care goes into our beers and, to us, this epitomises craft.
"We want to have a brewery that sustains itself and our family, and a business that is proud of where it is from.”
Savvy, aware, well-travelled, and earnestly playful – these are features that appear again and again in an examination of the craft beer industry in Northern Ireland. While no-one is going to refuse a profit, making money is not necessarily the top priority.
Many of the craft breweries are cooperatives, run by people who value quality and independence over financial gain, and desire a different way of doing things.
Brewing beer appeals because it’s an ancient craft that uses natural ingredients to meet a basic need and show the taste of where you are and where you come from. And it tastes good.
