l BREWING
Galway Hooker brewing plant
biggest blind-tasted Food Awards. The brewery currently employs six people (including Aidan), and now that it is at last catching up on all orders, it has more time to develop other beers, whether they be seasonal or poten- tially long term. Last year it brought out a Double IPA at 8.6%, and this year to date there have been three innovations; a dark wheat beer, a rye ale and a ‘blood red’ nitro ale sold exclusively in the King’s Head pub in Galway. However, the mainstay Pale Ale is still 90% of what is produced. 65% of the year’s beer is sold on draft, and of that well over three quarters is sold in the Galway and Dublin mar- kets. The other 35% is sold in bottled form in off-sales shops and the multiples – and has begun to branch out into export sales to Europe, in particular to France, Holland and Denmark where they have a keen following. What Aidan envisages for the fu- ture is a broadening of the beer range even further and a move to one-off small batch beers. Most of their output is despatched for bottling to Frederic Robinson in Stockport in the UK, with a minimum volume of 160hL in tanker. But with the advent in Ireland of a mobile bottler who can handle much smaller batch sizes, this has opened up real flexibility and the prospect of more one-off innovative beers to come. Aidan’s final comment is that he is committed to keeping the brewery at the cutting edge of the craft beer movement by continuing to produce “great innovative brews”. I thanked Aidan and his hard-work- ing team for their time, and wished them well in their future plans.
Grist case at a height above the brewery floor
Exterior of the mash/lauter tun
Interior of the mash/lauter tun, showing the slotted plates at the false bottom level
Lower section of the kettle/whirlpool showing the ability to go into whirlpool mode or go forward into fermenter
Broadening the beer range One brew per day is what is typically produced, and the beer styles have proliferated to the extent that while competing in the Irish Food Awards ( Blas na hÉireann ) over the last three years it has been the only brewery to win Gold in three consecutive years, not just for the Pale Ale (2014) but for its Stout (2015) and the Amber Lager (2016). Blas na hÉireann is Ireland’s
chilled worts are pitched with recycled yeast from previous batches and des- patched to a variety of FVs. There are four 80hL vessels, one of 40hL and three 12hL vessel which were brought over from the Emerald Brewery in Roscommon. Depending on beer type the beers then spend any- thing from two weeks to six weeks in the unitanks, before being chilled back and readied for trade.
(L – R) Owner Aidan Murphy, with new recruit Philip Brennan and Head Brewer Nicky Wilmott in front of their four 80hL FVs 10 z Brewer and Distiller International
www.ibd.org.uk
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