The first batch was a big risk. The smallest brew-length we could do was 1000 litres (~260 US gallons) — a hefty investment when you think of all the hops and malt that goes into Of Foam and Fury. We used all malt in the first recipe, which caused a headache: I was like ‘oh no, this isn’t going to finish out dry enough, it’s not going to be like a West-Coast IPA.’ But the first batch went to tap and people went crazy about it. It hasn’t changed since!

Well, except in one regard. The hops used are Chinook, Galena, Pacific Jade and Simcoe, but the last of those is really hard to get at the moment. I’ve been trying blends involving Mosaic: I’ve actually been brewing the beer with Mosaic in for longer than I did with Simcoe, to no ill-effect. If I could go back in time, I’d tell myself ‘Don’t put Simcoe in it!’ Some people have compared the beer to Pliny The Elder by Russian River but I hadn’t tried that when I first brewed Of Foam And Fury.

They’re very different beers, trying to achieve a similar end-goal. The thing that impresses me so much about Pliny The Elder is that it has a simple malt flavour; Of Foam and Fury has an intertwining of the hop aroma/bitterness and the malt flavour. It’s really nice how it mingles together.

The Importance of Ingredients

The hops are American, the malt from Simpson’s in the UK; I think local ingredients are important but we use them only when they’re really, really, really good. I won’t buy local for the sake of it. You support local when its good; that’s the idea we apply to our whole brewery. Actually, we collaborated on an Oatmeal IPA with a Chicago brewery called Begyle (the first Irish-American collaboration, I think) which had American hops and Irish oats. It’s full-bodied, with a great mouthfeel. I’m getting thirsty just thinking about it!

It’s been great how Of Foam and Fury has been received. The big surprise has been how well it has gone down outside of Ireland. There’s a wonderful world of beer out there; I just got back from Barcelona — there’s so much going on. It’s something we really want to look at this year, in terms of export. It’ll mean expanding, but we’ve had three expansions since I’ve been here. It’s all organic growth though, and that’s important. What’s great about Brewbot is it will inform us where we should target next as we grow, based on what people are brewing on the community and their feedback.

The Future of Beer

The Irish beer scene is moving really fast; it’s changed so much in the past few years. If I had brought the guys [owners Jason O’Connell and Niall Walsh] a Double IPA when I first started, they’d have told me to go and get stuffed! We’re able to do some really interesting stuff now. We’ve just released a beer called 200 Fathoms, the name of which comes from Ernest Hemingway’s old man and the sea. It’s been barrel-aged in Teeling small-batch barrels which were formerly used for rum; that’s a massive amount of history to be playing with in terms of flavour. We’re proud of that beer.

We also have a raspberry sour aging, in the previous space in the brewpub, which is completely separate to our production site. We’re hoping to have the time to keep adding to that; we want a portfolio of sour beers, we want to really generate interest in flavours in Ireland.

It seems incredible how much has changed over the past few years. I started homebrewing in university; I did biotechnology at Dublin City University. The majority of my class were homebrewing; we were exchanging ideas and coming up with weird and wonderful concoctions. That’s where the passion started, and the scientific background is what kept me in the job, with all the things breaking down, having to use your mind to get from point A to Z.

If you’d asked me five years ago about what the future holds for craft beer I probably wouldn’t have imagined where I am now. I’ll ride it out, take it as it comes. If in five years, we’ve expanded as much as the last few years I might not have any energy left! But if we stick to the plan we have, there’s a bright future ahead. We need to continue to do what we do, which is brew for flavour, not volume. That’s the key.