Thomas Lyons 
Ballykilcavan Brewing Company, a farm brewery in Laois, is expanding its trade in Europe. David Walsh-Kemmis, the founder and managing director of the company, stated that it is easier for them to sell beer into Milan and Paris than it is to Cork or Dublin. The Irish beer market is heavily dominated by two large brewing companies, making it easier for Ballykilcavan to sell into Europe where there is more scale available. The French and Italians are particularly interested in the family story behind the farm and the way the beer is made, using ingredients sourced from the farm. Ballykilcavan expects to produce 70,000L of beer this year, with no plans to sell non-alcoholic 0.0 beer. The brewery and visitor centre employ two full-time staff and two part-time.
March is a busy time on any malting barley farm, and this year was particularly busy at Ballykilcavan near Stradbally, where David was racing to get his barley sown and beer ready to be sent out all over Europe from his on-farm brewery. He has two distributors in France, one in Northern Italy, and one in the Czech Republic. February and March are two of the busiest months of the year in the brewery. The overseas distributors look for a lot of stock for St. Patrick’s Day, so the team has to make sure it’s packaged and ready to go out in early March. They are working on some events for later on in the year, including a tap takeover and trad night in DM Shelly’s Bar in Portlaoise, for Indie Beer Week, a celebration of independent Irish breweries which runs from May 24 to 28.
Ballykilcavan’s beers won three medals at the prestigious Concours International de Lyon beer competition in March, including a gold for its red ale, named after the Brickyard field on the farm. Ballykilcavan has also won the Laois County Enterprise Award for 2023 and will represent the county at the National Enterprise Awards in the Mansion House, Dublin, in June. The brewery is delighted and very honoured to be representing Laois at the national awards. The Lyon medals are great to get as well. It’s a highly regarded competition, and they’ll be a great help to the company as they look to expand their sales in France.
David is growing two crops of barley again this year – RGT Planet for the brewery and Laureate for Waterford Distillery. Both crops look good at the moment. The second split of nitrogen was added at the end of March, and both crops are coming towards the end of tillering now, so they’ll be looking at their first fungicide in about a week. Plant counts are good – 280 to 300 plants per square metre, and they have two to three tillers across the field, so David is hopeful that they’ll do well if the weather cooperates. The hop garden has suddenly burst into life as well, so they are busy training the plants to climb up the strings set up on the trellis. They’ll reach 6m in height by the middle of the summer and should be ready for harvest by the end of September.
Ballykilcavan Brewing Company is a farm brewery that is expanding its trade in Europe, according to David Walsh-Kemmis, the founder and managing director of the company. The brewery is located in Laois and produces 70,000L of beer annually. The Irish beer market is heavily dominated by two large brewing companies, making it easier for Ballykilcavan to sell into Europe where there is more scale available. The French and Italians are particularly interested in the family story behind the farm and the way the beer is made, using ingredients sourced from the farm.
David is growing two crops of barley again this year – RGT Planet for the brewery and Laureate for Waterford Distillery. Both crops look good at the moment. The hop garden has suddenly burst into life as well, so they are busy training the plants to climb up the strings set up on the trellis. They’ll reach 6m in height by the middle of the summer and should be ready for harvest by the end of September.
Ballykilcavan’s beers won three medals at the prestigious Concours International de Lyon beer competition in March, including a gold for its red ale, named after the Brickyard field on the farm. The brewery has also won the Laois County Enterprise Award for 2023 and will represent the county at the National Enterprise Awards in the Mansion House, Dublin, in June. The brewery is delighted and very honoured to be representing Laois at the national awards.
David was racing to get his barley sown and beer ready to be sent out all over Europe from his on-farm brewery. He has two distributors in France, one in Northern Italy, and one in the Czech Republic. February and March are two of the busiest months of the year in the brewery. The overseas distributors look for a lot of stock for St. Patrick’s Day, so the team has to make sure it’s packaged and ready to go out in early March. They are working on some events for later on in the year, including a tap takeover and trad night in DM Shelly’s Bar in Portlaoise, for Indie Beer Week, a celebration of independent Irish breweries which runs from May 24 to 28.
Ballykilcavan Brewing Company is expanding its trade in Europe. David Walsh-Kemmis, the founder and managing director of the company, believes that it is easier for them to sell beer into Milan and Paris than it is to Cork or Dublin. The Irish beer market is heavily dominated by two large brewing companies, making it easier for Ballykilcavan to sell into Europe where there is more scale available. The French and Italians are particularly interested in the family story behind the farm and the way the beer is made, using ingredients sourced from the farm.
David is growing two crops of barley again this year – RGT Planet for the brewery and Laureate for Waterford Distillery. Both crops look good at the moment. The hop garden has suddenly burst into life as well, so they are busy training the plants to climb up the strings set up on the trellis. They’ll reach 6m in height by the middle of the summer and should be ready for harvest by the end of September.
Ballykilcavan’s beers won three medals at the prestigious Concours International de Lyon beer competition in March, including a gold for its red ale, named after the Brickyard field on the farm. The brewery has also won the Laois County Enterprise Award for 2023 and will represent the county at the National Enterprise Awards in the Mansion House, Dublin, in June. The brewery is delighted and very honoured to be representing Laois at the national awards.
David was racing to get his barley sown and beer ready to be sent out all over Europe from his on-farm brewery. He has two distributors in France, one in Northern Italy, and one in the Czech Republic. February and March are two of the busiest months of the year in the brewery. The overseas distributors look for a lot of stock for St. Patrick’s Day, so the team has to make sure it’s packaged and ready to go out in early March. They are working on some events for later on in the year, including a tap takeover and trad night in DM Shelly’s Bar in Portlaoise, for Indie Beer Week, a celebration of independent Irish breweries which runs from May 24 to 28.
