Ireland, despite being a relatively small island nation, has been a brewing powerhouse for centuries. Ireland’s contributions to worldwide beer culture have been immense, and in many parts of the world the idea of the Irish pub, whether genuine or faux, remains surprisingly evocative. Ireland’s beer history, just as its overall history has always been, is inextricably intertwined with that of England. From the 12th-century colonization of Ireland by the English to the 1801 Act of Union, the famines and independence movements in the 19th century, and the Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921, England has had a large influence over many aspects of Irish life, including its beer.
The earliest form of beoir (Gaelic for beer) in Ireland is believed to have been brewed in the Bronze Age. The discovery of a possible brewery site, a fulacht fiadh (grass-covered mound), by archaeologists Declan Moore and Billy Quinn in Cardarragh, Co. Galway, led to the test brewing of a gruit (a beer flavored with plants and herbs but not hops) in 2001. Ingredients were barley, bog myrtle, meadowsweet, water, and yeast, resulting in a beer said to be “drinkable and worthy of our ancestor’s efforts.”
Ireland, like its Celtic cousin, Scotland, has a greater connection to spirits than beer, sharing uisce beathe (whiskey) but also having, uniquely, poitin, an Irish form of moonshine that is usually made from barley and sometimes from potatoes. The distilling of poitin was outlawed in 1661 and not legalized again until 1989. The encouragement by the English Parliament to push beer consumption in the 1730s and thus avoid the “immoderate use of spiritous liquors”—best exemplified in Hogarth’s 1750 prints entitled Gin Lane—met with limited success in Ireland. Like Scotland, Ireland grows no hops and its beers had to be flavored with imported, mainly Flemish, hops, which were the cheapest available at the time. A 1733 ban on such imports, however, forced Irish brewers to purchase more expensive hops from Hereford and Worcester in England, and sometimes beers were simply brewed without hops altogether or with indigenous herbs as in ancient times.
Records for the 18th century show Irish beer production to be markedly consistent. In 1720–1724, the Irish paid duty on a total of 822,000 hl (+480 hl imported from England); in 1770–1774, 762,000 hl (77,100 hl imported); and in 1790–1794, 818,000 hl (172,000 hl imported). The increase in imports was partly the result of the American War of Independence, which closed these colonial markets off to English breweries. There were also several barley shortages, including two very poor harvests in 1740 and 1741, which triggered the first of the Irish famines. By the 19th century, brewing capacity in Ireland had increased and the Industrial Revolution had taken hold in England. As a result, beer remained within English shores for home consumption. In 1808–1809, for instance, Irish beer production was 1.277 million hl and imports were only 3,680 hl. Duty and English protectionist policies, which both changed wildly during the 19th century, also had a significant effect on Irish beer production in terms of the sourcing of raw materials and how they were used.
In addition to the beer tax, England had also been charging a malt tax since 1697, using the money to finance a number of wars. To ensure that brewers did not avoid paying the malt tax, they were forbidden to use unmalted grist; in 1816 an almost German-sounding law was introduced, which stipulated that only malted barleys and hops could be used in the brewing of beer. The malt tax was repealed in 1880, but as is often the case in brewing, the effects of the tax continued to reverberate through Irish brewing for decades afterward.
The porter beer style originated in London in the early 18th century but quickly became hugely popular in Ireland as well. It was first brewed in Ireland in 1776, initially just with brown malt. Irish porters were later made from a mixture of pale and brown malts, mostly to reduce production costs. The porter flavor changed again after 1817, with the invention of black patent malt.
During the potato famine from 1845 to 1849, 1 million Irish died and another 1 million emigrated, mostly to America, but also to England. As a result, the Irish population declined by 20% to 25%. Yet Irish beer production did not decline correspondingly. It was 1.627 million hl 1837, but still 1.482 million hl in 1857. The reason was a growing beer export from Ireland. Guinness had launched its super porter in 1806; it became a single stout in 1840 and in the same year, exports accounted for 53% of the Guinness production. Irish beer production recovered to 3.24 million hl by 1875 and peaked at 5.459 million hl in 1915. With the rise in volume also came a greater concentration of the industry and a precipitous decline in the average beer’s original gravity and strength.
Ireland’s most famous and most recognizable beer brand, without a doubt, is the iconic Guinness. Arthur Guinness (1725–1807) had started brewing in 1756 and his eponymous brewery has gone on to dominate Irish brewing and become a world force. He set up St. James’s Gate brewery, set by the river Liffey, in Dublin in 1759. His first exports to England were 6.5 barrels of bitter, in 1769. Guinness ended his production of bitter in 1799 and concentrated instead on his porter, which he had introduced in 1778. That porter remained in production for almost 2 centuries, until 1974. During those early years, a dispute over a water channel arose that went on from 1775 until 1784. It ended in a peculiar settlement that gave Guinness a 9,000-year lease for the mere sum of £45 a year, after which Guinness embarked on a rapid expansion of his brewery. In 1801, Guinness developed a brew for the Irish workforce in the Caribbean. That brew was then called West Indian porter (a triple). It is now sold as foreign extra stout. Guinness’ first exports to continental Europe were to Lisbon in 1811; his first to America were in 1840. By 1870, exports amounted to 10% of total Guinness sales. By the early 20th century, Guinness was the world’s largest brewery with an annual volume of 4.8 million hl (1914 figure). After the Irish Free State passed the “Control of Manufacturer’s Act” in 1932, the Guinness headquarters moved to London. At that point, the Guinness family still held a 51% ownership in the company. In 1997, Guinness merged with Britain’s Grand Metropolitan Holdings plc to form the world’s largest drinks company, Diageo.
Only two other breweries have had a national impact on the Irish brew scene and went head to head with Guinness. These were Williams, Beamish & Crawford, and Murphy’s, both of county Cork. The former, although reportedly dating back to 1650, was officially founded as the Cork Porter Brewery in 1792. By 1805, it had become Ireland’s largest brewery, making some 160,000 hl. The company went public in 1901. It was acquired by Canada’s Carling O’Keefe in 1962, then by Australia’s Elders IXL in 1987, and then by Scottish & Newcastle in 1995, a company that became part of Heineken in 2008. Murphy’s was founded as the Lady’s Well brewery in 1854. By 1861 it had reached a volume of 68,600 hl. It peaked at 229,000 hl in 1901. In 1967, Britain’s Watney Mann took a controlling stake in the brewery but production fell to 18,000 hl in 1971. The company went onto receivership in 1982 and was taken over by Heineken a year later. In 1984, Heineken launched Murphy’s Red. Now that Heineken owned two breweries in County Cork, it decided to close one of them, which spelled the end of the Williams, Beamish & Crawford Brewery in 2009.
The first lager in Ireland was brewed by the Darty brewery in Dublin, in 1891, but it closed in 1896. The next brewery to try a lager was Regal, based in Kells. It managed to last from 1937 to 1954. Other than Harp, the only other lagers that have been brewed successfully in Ireland are the long established Heineken-owned or affiliated brands Amstel, Heineken, Fosters, and Carling. Finally, Tennents, a popular Scottish lager in the Irish market, was purchased by the Irish company C from Anheuser-Busch InBev in 2009.
Thomas Caffrey founded his eponymous brewery in Belfast in 1897,which was acquired by Charrington in 1967 and ultimately Interbrew in 2000, with brand rights sold to Coors in 2001.
The Letts Brewery Co. Wexford ceased brewing in 1956 but its Enniscorthy ruby red ale was acquired by Coors in 1981 and is brewed under license as Killians.
In the latter part of the 20th century, a wave of microbreweries opened in Ireland, some of them short lived: Balbriggan, Biddy Early, Dublin Brewery, Emerald, Kinsale, McCardle Moore, Dwan–Tipperary, and Waterford. Opening as the second wave were Arrain Mhor, Beoir Chorcha Dhibune, and Galway Hooker, plus Hilden and Whitewater in Ulster. In addition, the successful Porterhouse group has opened brew pubs in several Irish locations and in London’s Covent Garden.
At the start of the 19th century there were 200 breweries in Ireland, 55 in Dublin alone. By 1960, there were only 8 left, but by 2005, with the advent of microbreweries, that number had increased to 19. Doubtless, this small nation of 3.5 million people will continue to build back one of the world’s most influential and enduring beer cultures.