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A NEW CRAFT brewery and visitor centre is to bring 150 jobs to Kildare.
The Rye River Brewing Company are set to build what will be the biggest independent brewery in Ireland in Celbridge, adding 150 permanent jobs and 100 construction roles.
The new jobs will be created over three years and along with the investment of €4m into the new plant and visitor centre will be worth, the owners say, an extra €12.5 million to the local economy. The new positions will be spread across manufacturing, customer service, brewing, export, general operatives and management whilst up to 100 jobs will be generated in the construction of the new brewery. It is hoped the plant will open in
The Rye River Brewing Company was established in 2013 by Niall Phelan, Alan Wolfe and Tom Cronin who all learned their craft with global brewing giants Diageo, Heineken and Molson Coors.
The company has grown to almost 60 employees, produces a range of fifteen beers including six of their own brand McGargle beers and is a distribution centre for imported brands such as Bavaria and San Miguel along with craft beers from Innis & Gunn in Edinburgh.
They also supply private label contracts with Lidl and supply some exclusive brands to Tesco and Dunnes. Company turnover has increased from €189,000 in 2013 to €5.5 million in 2014, a 2900% increase, and they forecast a further growth in turnover to €16 million by the end of 2015.
Making the announcement today, Founder Niall Phelan said:
“This is a really exciting time for The Rye River Brewing Company as we reach this significant milestone in our expansion and development and we have strong plans and targets now in place to increase production to meet our growing export markets.”
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I wonder when does a craft beer become a regular beer? When you start expanding?
Once you brew over 3million litres, you no longer qualify as a “craft” Brewer and revenue treats you like a grown up.
Thanks for that Paul. Just starting the day and I’ve learned something. :-)
Great news for the local economy in Kildare!
When big conglomerates like Diageo can close down plants and fire people in Waterford, Kilkenny and Dundalk at the stroke of a pen from there H.Q in London, it’s great to know local Irish people are expanding business and providing Irish jobs, paying Irish tax and investing the profits back into the country…
Hmmm,
This article puts a Revenue limit of 20,000 litres on a craft brew…
http://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/foodanddrink/features/raise-a-glass-to-craft-beer-285152.html
I may have to go back to my source…
*Hectolitres
which for those who dont know equals 2 million litres.
Thats really a definition of a small micro brewery according to the revenue rules for duty rebate rather than anything to do with Craft.
Craft breweries in the U.S. and UK more than 20 times bigger than the litres produced by Rye River
When the alcohol level drops lol.
Great news. hope it works out well for them. With the investment and resources that they obviously have i hope they start making more innovative beers. No disrespect to them but right now they wouldnt be making the greatest of beers. Their best is probably their pale ale which is run of the mill at best. I personally would love it if they focused a bit more on the beer instead of the branding.
I agree with you there… They have a big focus on marketing, which I believe was what the owners of Rye Valley used to work at in Diageo…. They have expanded rapidly and are in a lot of pubs and Supermarkets..
They certainly need to work on there Brews… I would only drink it if the other choices were Diageo brands, otherwise there is much better out there…
you haven’t had big bang Francis yet, I take it.
Great news. Wherevin Celbridge?
**Where in
W23 K3C3
Article says Celbridge, you gave an Eircod (not spelling mistake) for existing factory in Kilcock. I also had to spend time looking up the code because I could not decipher where K3C3 was without IT support as W23 is the whole of North Kildare… what a crap system.
Dublin rd, in factory before graveyard.
their Granny Mary’s Ale is really nice
fantastic news
Have we reached peak craft beer yet? I do like ‘em though!
craft beer are at about 2% of the beer market. US 12% & still growing.
Kilcock’s loss..Thanks to all our local TDs for getting off your arse to help. More votes in Celbridge it seems.
Exactly what I’m thinking, I’ve been living here in kilcock for 10yrs and we never get any help from our local representatives, always the bigger towns of Kildare come first,
It’s a big secret when it’s going to open for production, it seems
Hopefully by end December
30,000HL is the current limit in Ireland according to revenue and because of that, according to Beoir.
That might be increasing with the next budget though to encourage expansions like this. 70,000HL per year is still an insignificant amount of beer compared to the big breweries. St James’ Gate for instance brews about* 10m HL per year. That’s about 143 times more than the new Rye River plant if my meagre maths skills are correct.
* I could be wrong but I know it’s more than 8m HL
Best of luck to them.
I had a few pints of their pale ale on Friday night, unusual stuff, tasted of grapefruit.
Great news
Best of luck you crafty buggers .case samples will be given the bottoms up test
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