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Ok, sorry for the alarmist title <!-- s:) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!-- s:) -->

This makes for interesting reading, and perhaps one or two lessons to be learned from it too.

Thanks to Smithwicks, my generation thinks ale is a four letter word, but I still think he shouldn't have started with a lager. Comparisons were going to be made, and lager drinkers expect one thing: bland. Of course hindsight is 20-20 and all that. Also going against him was the special excise rate for micros and the lack of internet/social networks.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="www.independent.ie/business/brewing-up-a...ks-trade-450737.html">www.independent.ie/business/brew ... 50737.html

There were several problems with the early generation of Micros. They didn't have the benefit of progressive duty, they had a lot less customer interest in craft beer and they had the big boys actively targeting them; "encouraging" publicans to take their taps out.

In the case of No1 brew, I didn't rate the beer very highly either and I wasn't quite as bad a beer geek then as I am now.

``I knew nothing at all about brewing,'' says Tynan. ``But I did know the drinks business and about developing and positioning brands after 20 years"

``I could also see the growing world-wide trend among beer drinkers for a specialised, more distinctive tasting beer. The Carlsbergs, Budweisers and Heinekens have huge sales, but a lot of people are getting tired of these mass-produced beer."


I think there are is a lesson to be learned from his statement. Don't try to beat the big boy a making a mediocre lager and rely on marketing to save you!

An was not the porterhouses first venture not the Republic first microbrewery?

&amp;quot;oblivious&amp;quot;:36uhq82v wrote: An was not the porterhouses first venture not the Republic first microbrewery?[/quote:36uhq82v]
Harty's, in the 1980s I think. Article here:
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="www.thepost.ie/story/text/ojcwojojgb/">www.thepost.ie/story/text/ojcwojojgb/

For those that think the Revenue are sympathetic:
"the company was eventually forced out of business by bad debts and Revenue pressure over unpaid duty."

Perhaps this the stick they then used to get Biffo to halve excise for micros:
"As finance minister, his halving of excise duty on every pint of beer produced, from 56 cent to 28 cent, made all the difference to operations like ours."

I suppose the difference is that tehnically the PH back then was a brewpub, whereas in Newbridge it was a brewery.

The Dempsey,s brewery inshicore was the first brewery to set up and this was followed by Harty,s blessington. An attempt to set up another one in Birr,offaly selling "Brian Boru Bitter" which was brew under license and sold locally. The brewery never opened. At the time also 2 more opened in the north,"maiden oak brewery",Derry and "Herald Brewery" coleraine.

Didn't help that Brew No 1 was crap. Every bottle tasted skunked; and was easy to spot when Actons tried to pass it off as their own beer too.