Could we be reaching Peak Craft Beer?

In a food and drink area experiencing extreme heat, I recently investigated whether we're reaching the peak of a trend, or are in fact nowhere near the top. 

Long championed among Ireland's craft beer makers is the 10% of the US beer market that small craft labels have captured. Personally I love craft beer. But many Irish drinkers express a "done with that" attitude to the trend. So how is it really progressing and can it be ever upwards?

Recently I went along to a beer tasting seminar hosted by Liquid Curiosity in Dublin to meet brewers, taste beers and gauge the energy of new entrants to craft beer.

So what is a beer seminar?

Firstly there were about 25 people there – from the hospitality industry, brewers already in business, people wanting to set up a craft beer company and amateur enthusiasts. Tutor Jacqueline Steadman from Australia gave a basic introduction to different types of beers – pale ales, pilsners, stouts and what they are made from - hops, malt barley etc.

We sampled Irish beers and ciders in the main like Galway Hooker and Cockagee Cider from Slane but also more unusual products like cherry beers and a French Geuze formed with lots of lactic acid which tasted a bit like old socks. This was so deliciously on the verge of both disgusting and incredibly good that the only reason I pushed it to one side was it's incredibly high alcohol level at 8% APV.
 

The participants tasted the beers and discussed their characteristics. On each tasting sheet provided, beers were marked on colour, taste, the head, alcohol level, integration etc. Everyone really enjoyed tasting, commenting and getting to know new beers. There was lots of craic, plus a delicious lunch by Mourne Seafood where the seminar was held.


And there's not just energy and enthusiasm in the sector. The hard figures show huge growth.
From a handful of companies brewing before 2010 there are now over 80 Irish craft beer brands. Here's the question – how many more breweries can Ireland support? Craft beer here occupies between 1 and 2 percent of the beer market. In the United States their 10 percent hold has the big guns directly blaming craft beer for declining market share.

Budweiser volumes have fallen in the U.S. from nearly 50-million-barrel peak sales in 1988 to 16 million barrels last year. Light beers and craft beers have been the biggest factor in this decline, with younger people in the US staying away from what seem like old fashioned brands A recent study published by WSJ found that 44% of drinkers aged between 21 and 27 have never tried Budweiser. Sorry Clydesdales. You may be cute but you're also ageing.


So on paper there is still huge space for growth in Ireland – in other words to take Budweiser, Heineken and Guinness drinkers away from those brands onto craft beer brands. However it’s not as simple as that. Many Guinness drinkers simply like Guinness. Some craft beer drinkers are occasional beer drinkers who may not switch wholesale to one brand but try many and not be loyal to any.
Another remaining problem is that many bars particularly outside cities or foodie areas still do not stock craft beers. In some of the best hotels in Ireland I've asked for a craft beer and been looked at askance.

We also know that most of the Irish companies are very small and perhaps much of the appeal of their product is in their own local area or county. How many are going to be listed with the big supermarkets for example? Denise Murphy who manages the alcohol sector for Bord Bia points out that they are now directing craft beer companies more towards export. At so small a portion of the beer market here companies are going to have to look abroad to grow their output. It's not essential for survival but essential for growth.


Some drinkers are frankly sick to death of craft beer. And it's true that some products have been talked up. At the tasting seminar tutor Jacqueline Steadman who is an Australian wine maker opened a beer and pointed out a lot of what was wrong with it. There was plenty. We must remember that just because a beer says craft in front of it does not mean it’s excellent in every way. The term Craft Beer is also under fire in some territories where massive breweries make "craft" products and it’s been put forward by some publications that the term such be ditched.


Before the last budget in Ireland if you produced under 20,000 hectolitres annually beer companies got a tax rebate but that was then extended to 30,000 hectolitres. This was directly to benefit small craft beer companies very often situated in rural areas to grow, which is a very good thing. However it doesn’t stop companies calling themselves craft beer producers who produce far above this level.


There has been controversy in particularly the US where craft beer producers are often massive companies the size of Diageo. And even some craft producers say it’s better not to have a classification at all.


Having observed craft beer grow from so little in Ireland it's been an exciting and interesting journey to report on. I've interviewed and featured beer producers from Galway, Dublin, Donegal, Cork, Leitrim and Monaghan. I would characterise the sector at this point as being in its second phase. The stage where a community regroups, reflects upon itself and competition usually gets tougher as the marketplace gets more crowded.


Bright futures aren't a given for all these companies and it's worth noting that breathlessly championing every single product is a mistake. Ultimately craft beer offers the consumer more choice as the big international brands have had a stranglehold on the beer market for decades. That's a good thing, but perhaps is also viewing craft beer as no longer the food and drink baby needing kisses and love but a juvenile with a bright future, and challenges yet to take on. 

@campbellsuz on twitter

Basketcase on trial - what I really feed my family

This piece appeared in The Irish Independent last week. The editor and I felt it was important in the wake of the horsemeat crisis to talk about the ins and outs of buying meat products and a quick guide from the horses mouth so to speak (bahahaha) on what's healthy and risky in terms of processed food is what consumers want right now. 

I feel that telling people only to buy organic or local food is not where its at, or something that most peoples income allows for. My grocery shop for my family of four is a mixture of the two - buying both local and supermarket products, and cooking really simple dishes that don't break the bank. All of us have been rattled by the horsemeat story and are shopping more carefully. A Which? survey in the UK shows substantial loss of confidence in the safety of processed meats. While 9 out of 10 customers felt supermarket food was very safe to eat before the crisis, the number has now dropped to 7 out of 10.Have a look and let me know if your food strategy has changed in the wake of the horsemeat crisis.    

Irish Independent 9th March 2013

Food Writer Suzanne Campbell - "What I really feed my family"

“Are chicken goujons safe to give the kids?” These are the sort of questions mothers ask me, especially since the horsemeat crisis began in January. As a food writer the story didn’t take me by surprise. I live in the countryside and keep horses; one which was destined for a meat plant before I gave it a home.

Over the past weeks I’ve done countless interviews for Irish and European media on the issue and in a bizarre twist, conducted a live radio piece on horse burgers while exercising my own horse. For me, horsemeat was the perfect storm; the under-regulated horse trade exploding into a Pandora’s Box of horrors for consumers. In 2009 I had spelled out these fears in the book “Basketcase: what’s happening to Irish food?” co-authored with my husband – journalist Philip Boucher-Hayes. Then as now, our warnings about the real cost of cheap food fell on deaf ears.

I’m a journalist and the mother of two young children so I also put a family meal on the table every day. Living in the Wicklow hills may be the foodie dream and I go to a lot of swanky food events but our home menu is far from Masterchef. I don’t spend a lot of money on food, I just keep things simple. When people ask me is something safe to eat, I’m honest. There are some foods I just wouldn’t eat and some surprises that I would. 

Spuds, lamb, summer salad, wild garlic pesto. Fairly uncomplicated

You will never see a ready meal in my kitchen. One spaghetti bolognese I examined recently contains just 16% meat. Food “extenders” and “fillers” often make up the rest, adding volume and taste to sausages, burgers, ready meals and any amount of things in our trolleys. The reason? They reduce food manufacturing costs by 10-30%.

I understand why many consumers buy ready meals. As a working mum I often finish my day with cooking the last thing on my mind. I get round this by always having meals in the freezer. When I cook a chilli beef, ratatouille, curry, Irish stew etc I make twice the amount and freeze a complete meal. This is the key to avoiding take-away on the way home from work or dropping into the supermarket in a flap and coming out with a huge bill and still nothing for dinner.

Goujons - do they have a texture like jelly?

The aforementioned chicken goujons I simply don’t buy or eat. I peeled open a chicken goujon last week that looked like MRM (Mechanically Recovered Meat). MRM has a texture like sponge. It is not allowed at present in European food manufacturing but businesses get around the law by using the “Bader process” to make virtually the same thing – meat recovered from sinews and scraps from carcasses.

The safety issue for me is what’s used to congeal these bits of meat back into a palatable foodstuff. I don’t eat anything “re-constituted” that doesn’t have muscle texture, including turkeys or chickens at carvery counters that look like footballs.

After our RTE documentary “What’s Ireland Eating” aired many people approached myself and Philip with fears about ham. We showed a process where ham joints were boosted to a huge size by hundreds of needles pushing water and nitrates into the flesh. Processed meats, including hams and salamis have been linked to colonic cancer. Imported rashers and ham has higher nitrite levels (up to 20%) than are allowed in Ireland so I always buy ham with Bord Bia quality assured label.

Billy Roll - I don't go near it

Look for ham (even packed slices of ham) cut from the bone where you can see muscle grain. Likewise, jelly-textured cubed chicken found in sandwich bars, and deli counters. Even if it’s covered in a heavy “Cajun” or “Tikka” dressing; most of this chicken comes already processed from Thailand or Brazil and rarely made from fresh Irish chicken.

Ireland imports 2.5 million chicken breasts a week. Many of these have been found by the FSAI to be gas-flushed with CO2 to preserve them, on sale with incorrect use-by dates and could be up to ten days old from as far away as the Ukraine. Butchers are my first choice for buying beef but I don’t buy chicken in some butchers as many imported chicken fillets are sold loose on their counters. At the very least this chicken is stale. I only buy chicken fillets if they are Bord Bia certified (in supermarkets), free-range or if I’m flush, organic. 

This carrot and parsley soup takes about 20 mins to make

In our house meat is not a central part in every meal. I make a soup (curried carrot and parsnip, leek and potato) about twice a week, and yes, I add cream. This could be a dinner in my house. As is also scrambled eggs with tomato and basil, simple spaghetti with Irish mushrooms and pesto, cous cous or quinoa salad with mixed leaves, chopped peppers, cumin, olives and salami.

We’ve one child who is a great eater, the other one is more tricky. I adopt the French approach with children; mealtime choice is - menu A or menu A. Research show some foods like lettuce have to be offered up to 21 times before they are eaten; I put it in lunchtime sandwiches, it gets picked out. Then one day it isn’t picked out and eaten from then on. So don’t give up.

For my food shop I buy meat and vegetables from shops in my local village, spending about thirty euro a week in each. I buy store cupboard foods in one big shop about every three weeks in either Superquinn or Aldi. I know many Irish farmers who produce own brand product for Aldi. I also buy a lot of their imported foods like kidney beans, tinned tomatoes, chick peas, chillies, herbs and spices. Choose what has the least added ingredients and cooks well.

Remember, the more players involved in a single food product, the more likely it is to go wrong. Yearly I buy half a lamb from my neighbour butchered into joints ready to cook or freeze. At the weekend I buy sourdough bread, Kilbeggan porridge oats, Ed Hick’s rashers and eggs from the local farm shop.

My family food spend is under 150 euro a week, not counting wine or craft beer which I splurge on now and again. If I wasn’t partial to French wines and Irish cheese I would probably be the most healthy person on the planet.

So what can we do to eat safely and not pay out a fortune? Keep your food chain short and keep things simple. It takes work but shouldn’t break the bank. I dislike patronising advice to consumers to only buy organic or local. Find a place on the food and cooking scale you are comfortable with. Ditch Masterchef, take the pressure off yourself and cook with freshness to get taste.

Six foods I wouldn’t eat

Chicken goujons

Billy roll or any ham with a clowns face on it

Huge glossy chicken fillets in independent retailers or butchers often sold at discount

Chicken in a restaurant or sandwich bar – unless stated on the menu it is imported

Breaded fish including salmon, I stay away from farmed salmon and buy wild smoked salmon as an occasional treat

Brightly coloured snacks or crisps. McDonnell’s and Keoghs are pretty additive free.

My unexpected favourites –

Aldi’s Duneen natural yoghurt; I use it with everything; blitz with fruit for summer smoothies

Burgers – cook your own from mince or buy Aldi’s Aberdeen Angus 100% Irish beef; red meat is the best way to get iron into your system

Beans (without sugar) – unglamorous but a nutritious two minute meal heated on crusty bread

Smoked mackerel or herring costs about three euro a pack. Smashed up with crème fraiche and rocket makes a gorgeous topping on toast. Goatsbridge trout is so good eat it on its own.

Sodastream – invest in one. I drink two litres of sparkling water a day. Saved me a huge amount of cash and recycling of water bottles.

Like beer, pubs, cheese, eating, everything? Check out this little video and a celebration of our wonderful Irish farmhouse cheeses and craft beers

Many years ago as a young producer on Ear to the Ground I set up a story on Ardrahan cheese in Cork and came home with rounds of the most gorgeous soft, richly-flavoured Irish farmhouse cheese. It was all fairly new to me at the time, and in fact in I remember sitting round with a bunch of us in the production office, digging in and generally looking wide-eyed at each other saying - wow this is Really Good... How come we didn't know about this before?
That was over ten years ago and particularly in that period, Irish farmhouse cheeses have grown from a small number of producers to over fifty businesses. These range from what I call the big players - Cashel Blue, Gubbeen etc.. who have their product on cheese boards in top restaurants and who've developed export markets to the smaller, newer entries such as Mary Kelly's Moonshine soft cheeses made in Mullingar.

The last ten years or so have also seen the growth of craft beers in Ireland. Long in the stranglehold of the big international breweries, most Irish pubs or restaurants offered little choice in anything local or alternative to drink. Now we've no excuses - with gorgeous beers from Dungarvan Brewing Company, O'Haras, and Eight Degrees Brewing and fourteen other craft brewers getting into off licenses and pubs, we finally have alternatives that are great tasting products. I adore a decent beer and any chance I get, I pick up some of the new Irish offerings. Yes they are more expensive but they taste fantastic, with real bite and flavour.

Last weekend in Ireland saw a countrywide initiative to bring craft beers and farmhouse cheeses closer to consumers who may not be aware of, or buy this kind of food and drink. Bord Bia, the national food organisation here initiated the Farmhouse Cheese and Craft Beer Weekend with over 30 activities that took place in farms, breweries, restaurants, gastropubs, off-licences and markets across the country involving tastings, pairings and demonstrations.

All these beers and cheeses have individual stories behind them and every time I eat an Irish cheese such as Glebe Brethan (a gorgeous Gruyere type cheese) I think of David Tiernan out milking his cows that morning in all kinds of weather and muck and madness. Because that's the reality of farming; it's tough, often disheartening but also rewarding for people like David when you're making a product as good as his at the end of the day. The picture left is of the cheese room at Ardrahan; a small Irish business but one creating crucial employment in rural areas [I particularly love the St. Bridgets cross on the wall; a big feature of my childhood as my parents came from the wetlands around Lough Erne]
And this is what it's all about; small family businesses and the personalities, places and stories behind them. According to John McKenna, eminent food writer here and editor of Bridgestone Guides - "We are dealing with the most bespoke artisan foods in the world here. Craft beers have the ability to take you into the brewer's highest aspiration; that potent wish to make a drink that evokes their work. They are being treated as the wines of Ireland. The farmhouse cheeses convey the good things of Ireland; pure food; fine milk, and content animals, about sharing and hospitality, and the creativity of a determined individual on a small Irish farm, stamping every cheese with the signature of their personality. It is marvellous to see them being enjoyed and appreciated together"

Check out the video below which will give you a really good picture of what's going on in Irish cheese and beer, and for my many foreign readers, its a pretty good account of what the inside of an Irish pub looks like. Though I suspect, many of you guys know that already hahaaa. Happy eating and drinking x
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1QVWkFQKjo