I think, basically, it's a pain in the arse to sort out the customs and excise. As far as I know there are no bonded warehouses dealing with alcohol from the Republic. Not sure how the Hilden festival works. Possibly best not to enquire <!-- s;) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_wink.gif" alt="

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Hopefully that'll change and the northern market will be more open to southern beers generally. There certainly seems to be an interest from retailers.
All the GB beers are sourced centrally from a single distributor.