The Place of Irish Craft Beer: Exploring the growth and evolution of the Irish craft brewing industry post-1990.
Craft Beer has exploded as a global phenomenon over the past three decades (XX). Hoppy, bitter pale ales; smooth, refreshing and lighter lagers and the inimitable dark, rich, heavy stouts are just a few of the types of beer that have attracted and sustained the attention of drinkers and brewers alike. At a time when many younger drinkers have turned to hard liquor and binge drinking (XX), craft beer offers a countervailing picture of drinking behaviour. Although typically higher in alcohol content, craft beer has been characterised by the phrase: ‘less of better’ – an appreciation a deliberate decision to consume less (and often pay more) of a better thing. And so it pitches itself as a ‘healthier’ alternative of consumption and one that seeks to address global concerns around dilution of local culture resulting from increased mobility and the permeation of an always-on, globally connected social media.
The Consolidation of Irish Breweries 1775-Present
This flow chart shows the process of consolidation for a multitude to three larger brewing concerns. This data is derived from a variety of sources including O’Drisceoil and O’Drisceoil’s Lady’s Well Brewery and Beamish and Crawford histories, Hart’s business history of Guinness’s and the Barclay Perkin’s Website.
Irish Farm-Based Microbreweries
This is a quick map showing all microbreweries in Ireland with highlights and callouts for Farm-based microbreweries. These are current as of June 2019 and reflect the self-qualification of the microbreweries themselves. There is no distinct business classification for this type of brewery in Ireland.
Words Describing Irish Craft Beer
This is a very quick tag cloud scrapped from the brewer-supplied descriptions on labels and websites of their various brews. This cloud was constructed in July 2018 and was derived from a database of approx 1500-1700 descriptions. A stop list of 395 words has been applied.
Irish Beer Production and Consumption, 2003-2016
This chart uses data provided by the Brewers of Europe for official consumption and production by Irish Breweries over the period 2003-2016 measure in hectolitres. It demonstrates a decline in both production and consumption in Ireland over this time period.
Declining Irish Beer Consumption (per capita) 2003-2017
This chart uses data from the Brewers of Europe to focus on beer consumption in particular and includes beer from all sources consumed in the Republic of Ireland. Average beer consumption per capita has declined by 21% over the period 2003-2017. There has been a slight change in the places in which beer is purchased and consumed.
Locations of Working Irish Microbreweries, April 2018
This is a map of identified operational microbreweries in Ireland. The data behind this map has been obtained from a variety of sources including news media, beoir.org, untapp’d, ratemybeer.com, and the revenue website. It does not include contract brewers or cukoo/gypsy brewers.
Growth of Italian Craft Brewing 1996-2015
This a chart shows the growth, in the simple number of entrants to the various classifications of craft beer production, in Italy: craft brewery, brew pub, beer firm and thew agricultural brewery. This data comes from the paper: The Italian microbrewing experience: features and perspectives (2018) Fastigi et al.
What Are Irish Brewers Brewing?
This chart uses the BAA classifications, to tag approx. 2,200 individual brews that were produced between 2010-2018 by Irish brewers both craft and macro. The data is again derived from the various sources previously mentioned and contained in a larger database.
Average ABV of Beer / County
Again using approx. 2,200 brews between 2010-18 computing and placing average ABV of beers brewed in particular counties.
Microbreweries per 100,000 residents
Using the same database of Irish beers mentioned previously, this map presents the number of microbreweries per 100,00 residents of each county calculated from the 2016 census figures.
Microbreweries Over Time
Charting spatial and temporal growth of Irish craft brewers.
Vertical Timeline of Craft Brewery Foundings
This is a vertical timeline showing individual brewery founding dates from 1981-2019.
This TimeMapper product presents the complete database of all brewers documented since 1700 in Ireland.
Wheel of Irish Beer Styles
Using same data as the stream map of beer types, a different representation from 2,200 brews of BAA typology interactive.
Lost Breweries of Ireland
A crowdsourced project by members of Beoir looking for evidence of defunct Irish breweries.
Omeka Database of Irish Microbreweries
A Quick Interview on the Craft Brewing Boom for the Evening Echo – November 2018