Ireland

The rarest ending in this archive: a brewery that sold to a multinational and then got itself back. Scott Baigent and Cam Wallace — a New Zealander and an Australian, the name is the latitude line…

The great pivot. Arthur started with traditional Dublin ales, then noticed a dark, roasted London import called 'porter.' He abandoned ale entirely in 1799 to perfect the 'black stuff,' eventually…

Cork's craft pioneer, brewing on the site of a Franciscan monastery well since 1998 and genuinely one of the breweries that started Irish craft. Molson Coors bought it in 2013. Rebel Red still tastes…

A stout launched by a fighter, into the one market on earth least likely to be impressed by a new stout. Ireland has Guinness, Beamish and Murphy's, and a home crowd with strong opinions about all…

One of the founding brewers of the modern Irish craft revival, going since 1996 when the entire market was Guinness and everything else was imported. O'Hara's Irish Stout was the first credible…

Dublin City Brewing Co. brews in Co. Dublin. The full profile — founding, people, beer library, travel — is still to be written.

In the Ring Gaeltacht on the Waterford coast, and cannily positioned on the Greenway — the old railway line turned cycle route that put this stretch of coast back on the map.

The cleverest structure in Irish beer: a brewery that also owns the pubs. Galway Bay runs a chain of craft bars across the country, which means it never has to beg a publican for a tap. Of Foam and…

Donegal's flagship, and one of the few Irish breweries with genuine cross-border reach into the North. Rustbucket made a rye ale a normal thing to order in Ireland, which took some doing.

The most exported reputation in modern Irish brewing. Whiplash built a following abroad before Dublin quite caught up, and Rollover is the beer that made a session IPA feel like a statement.

Solar-powered and growing its own hops in the Wicklow hills — one of the few Irish breweries where the sustainability talk is backed by the electricity bill.

Named for the field the barley comes from. Estate brewing in Laois, where the grain does not travel further than the yard.

A farm that has been in the same family since 1639, now growing its own barley and brewing it on site. Thirteen generations of tenancy and then somebody finally decided to make beer with the crop.

Cork had two stout breweries arguing with each other and with Dublin for two centuries. Beamish was once bigger than Guinness. The brewery is gone, the brand continues, and the city has one fewer…

Farmhouse ales in Roscommon, a county with almost no brewing and a lot of good barley. Sheep Stealer is a saison, which in the Irish midlands counts as a provocation.

Started in a garage in Kinsale by a couple who got a homebrew kit as an anniversary present, now a brewery and distillery over the Bandon estuary. Ireland's food capital acquired a drinks industry to…

A serious packaging operation on the Boyne, built at a scale that suggests ambitions well beyond Meath.

A working dairy farm in Inniskeen — Patrick Kavanagh's parish — where the tasting bar is a pre-famine cottage from 1837. Beer served in a building that predates the Famine, on land the poet wrote…

New in 2024, naming everything in Irish, in a county that had essentially no brewing. Bréifne is the old kingdom that covered Cavan and Leitrim.

Built for the Killarney tourist trade at proper destination scale, with a distillery alongside. Devil's Punchbowl is named for the corrie lake above the town.

Lineman Brewing Co. brews in Co. Dublin. The full profile — founding, people, beer library, travel — is still to be written.

Named for the lake Yeats wrote Innisfree about. A serious canning operation for a town of twenty thousand.

Order a stout in Cork and specifying which one is a real choice rather than a formality. Murphy's is sweeter and lighter than Guinness, and in its own city it wins. Dublin does not get a vote.

O Brother Brewing brews in Co. Wicklow. The full profile — founding, people, beer library, travel — is still to be written.

A taproom and pizzeria in Inchicore, and one of the few Dublin breweries where you can drink the beer in the room it was made in — the city has more brewers than it has places to sit with them.

Named for the River Deel that runs through Crossmolina. North Mayo is emptying and a brewery is one of the few things arriving.

The commercial workhorse of Irish craft — Rye River brews its own brands and a great deal of what ends up on supermarket shelves under other names. Unglamorous, and quietly one of the biggest…

Ireland's oldest ale, brewed on an abbey site for three centuries before the kettles moved to Dublin.

St Mel's Brewery brews in Co. Longford. The full profile — founding, people, beer library, travel — is still to be written.

Kilkenny is a brewing town that spent decades with its beer made by somebody else — Smithwick's went to Diageo and the brewery closed. Sullivan's revives a name from 1702 in a city that badly wanted…

Behind the Roadside Tavern in Lisdoonvarna, a spa town best known for a matchmaking festival. Trad music, seafood and beer brewed through the wall.

Named for the Cailleach, the hag-goddess of Irish myth, and every beer follows the theme. One of the most internationally visible Irish breweries, out of a Sligo village most people have never heard…

Named for the Kerryman who survived three Antarctic expeditions including Shackleton's, went home to Anascaul and opened a pub called the South Pole Inn. A brewery named for him is about the least…

In Limerick's medieval quarter under King John's Castle, named for the 1691 Treaty of Limerick — a city that has spent three hundred years arguing about a broken agreement now sells beer named after…

One of the earlier arrivals of the Irish craft wave, brewing in Kildare since 2009 and still making the case for a hoppy beer in a stout country.

Out on the Dingle peninsula in the Kerry Gaeltacht, brewing since 2008 and labelling in Irish first. About as far west as brewing goes in Europe before the Atlantic takes over.

Organic farmhouse brewing in Tipperary with the agriculture taken as seriously as the beer.

Attached to Mickey Finns, which is the sort of arrangement that keeps a rural brewery alive — the pub sells the beer and the beer fills the pub.

Comic-book branding and genuinely good beer out of Wexford — yellowbelly being the old nickname for a Wexford native, which makes the name a local handshake.

In the Cork Gaeltacht, brewing bilingually and best known for Stag Saor — a gluten-free range built properly rather than as an afterthought, which almost nobody else was doing in 2013.

Overlooking Carlingford Lough with the Mournes across the water — a medieval village that does a brisk trade in weekend visitors and now brews for them.

Named for Athlone's claim to be the dead centre of Ireland, which the town wears with more humour than most. A brewpub on the Shannon in a place people usually drive through.

Dundalk Bay Brewery brews in Co. Louth. The full profile — founding, people, beer library, travel — is still to be written.

Baltimore is the jumping-off point for Sherkin and Cape Clear, and the beer is named accordingly. Island tourism in a glass.

A family farm brewery in the middle of Clare, which is dairy country — the herd in the name is not decorative.

Seed status: SEED VERIFIED. Major Irish brewery seed. Country seed — a starting point for this state, not a national sweep. [Region Pass 04]

Blarney Brewing Co. brews in Co. Cork. The full profile — founding, people, beer library, travel — is still to be written.

Canvas Brewery brews in Co. Tipperary. The full profile — founding, people, beer library, travel — is still to be written.

Clonakilty is a West Cork food town famous for its black pudding. A brewery was the obvious next entry on the trail.

Doolin is the trad music capital of Clare and the ferry point for the Aran Islands. A beer named for the village is aimed at a very specific and very reliable crowd.

A blending house more than a brewery, working in barrels and mixed fermentation. No public room; you find DOT on other people's taps, which is its own kind of reputation.

One of the newest breweries in the archive, opened in 2025 into the hardest market Irish craft has faced.

Named for Donegal's quartzite mountain, brewing in the Gaeltacht on the wildest coast in Ireland.

Art-led branding and contract-brewed batches — a modern way to run a beer company without owning a building, and increasingly the only affordable way to start one.

Jack Smyth Brewing Co. brews in Co. Dublin. The full profile — founding, people, beer library, travel — is still to be written.

JJ's Craft Brewing brews in Co. Limerick. The full profile — founding, people, beer library, travel — is still to be written.

Larkins Brewing Co. brews in Co. Wicklow. The full profile — founding, people, beer library, travel — is still to be written.

Original 7 Brewing Co. brews in Co. Cork. The full profile — founding, people, beer library, travel — is still to be written.

Wild fermentation and barrel-aged cider on the Inishowen side of the border, minutes from Derry. Patient beer in a place where the border has never been theoretical.

The Dew Drop Brewhouse brews in Co. Kildare. The full profile — founding, people, beer library, travel — is still to be written.

Third Barrel Brewing brews in Co. Dublin. The full profile — founding, people, beer library, travel — is still to be written.

Torc Brewing Co. brews in Co. Kerry. The full profile — founding, people, beer library, travel — is still to be written.

Wild yeast, mixed cultures and oak in rural Longford — the most patient brewing in the Irish midlands, and the least commercially sensible, which is usually a good sign.

One of the genuine originals of Irish craft, brewing in Waterford from 2011 and named for the navigation tower on the Tramore coast. Went on hiatus in 2022 and did not come back — an early-wave…

River Shannon Brewery brews in Co. Offaly. The full profile — founding, people, beer library, travel — is still to be written.

In the Slieve Bloom mountains, the oldest hills in Ireland and about the emptiest — brewing for walkers who have earned it.