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Bullhouse Brew Co: Redefining Northern Ireland’s Craft Beer Scene with Community, Sustainability and Unforgettable Flavours
June 05, 2023
Get ready to raise your pint glasses as we dive headfirst into the captivating world of Bullhouse Brew Co. This Northern Irish brewery has emerged as a formidable player, reshaping the craft beer landscape with an unwavering commitment to community, sustainability, and an unapologetic pursuit of palate-pleasing flavours. So, grab a seat at the bar and join us as we delve into the story of Bullhouse Brew Co.
Q. Can you tell us a bit about the history of Bullhouse Brew Co, and what inspired you to start making beer?
I went on a road trip around the west coast of the US in 2011 with my older brother. I distinctly remember visiting Green Flash Brewing Co on an industrial estate outside San Diego on a Friday afternoon and all the workers from the factories had come by for a Friday afternoon beer. Seeing the local community engaged with great local beer inspired me to start homebrewing that Christmas, with the dream of one day opening a brewery.
Q. How do you engage with the local community?
Since opening Bullhouse, one of our objectives has been to disrupt the monopoly and ultimately create a new licensing system. We managed to open Belfast's first permanent taproom, Bullhouse East, which we opened in June 2022. We've had a really positive reaction from the local community since opening, and we receive support from a wide section of the community. Creating a neutral space for the entire community is vitally important in Belfast. We run regular events such as poetry nights, tap takeovers, meet the brewers and beer and food pairings. We're hosting a free street party for the entire community to celebrate turning one, Bullapalooza. We're bringing 14 craft traders, 5 food traders and three other local breweries together to offer a free event with live music and interactive games. All of our events are family friendly and dog friendly as well!
Q. How does Bullhouse Brew Co. promote sustainability in its brewing process and operations?
We are always looking at ways we can increase our sustainability. One of our most recent projects was born out of the rising energy prices and trying to work out how we could reduce our energy usage. We installed a new brewhouse (three times the size) which greatly increases our efficiency and energy usage as a result. We also installed a new highly efficient glycol system to reduce our energy consumption on the cold side. We don't use any bright beer tanks, so we spund all our tanks and package straight from our cylindroconical fermenters, greatly reducing our CO2 usage.
Q. Are there any upcoming collaborations or special projects that you are working on? What can customers look forward to in terms of new or limited-edition releases?
We're always working on something! We've just released our collaboration with North Brewing Co - Unfortunately Karson - a 4.8% West Coast Pale. We've also just brewed a collaboration with Kinnegar from Donegal which will be a delightful little golden ale. We've a couple of fruited sours in production at the moment which will be perfect for the inevitable summer heatwave.
Q. As a brewery operating in Northern Ireland, known for its restrictive beer market, what are some of the challenges you’ve encountered, and how have you been able to overcome them?
How long have you got?! Running a brewery in Northern Ireland is something I would not recommend to anyone. There are a finite number of licensed premises, and always have been. Currently, that number stands at 1800, (1100 on-trade and 700 off-trade). Everytime a supermarket opens in Northern Ireland, they have to get a license from somewhere, so it generally means a community loses their local pub and one of those 1100 on-trade licenses is converted to one of the 700 off-licenses. Outside of Bullhouse East, there are less than 20 rotational draught lines available for local breweries to access. A license costs around £100,000 (without legal fees), but the most challenging part is that any pub in the vicinity of where you would like to open a new venue can object on the grounds of competition. This usually involves a brown envelope to ensure any potential objectors withdraw their objection. We only sell to independent venues, so that restricts us to accessing roughly 50 of the 1800 licensed premises in Northern Ireland.
Q. How do you define success at Bullhouse? What are your aspirations and goals for the future of the brewery?
The goal when I started Bullhouse was to bring new styles of beer to market in Northern Ireland, we ticked that off the list pretty early with the first two releases back in 2016 being an Imperial Stout and a Potato Saison! Our main priority now is to reform the licensing system in Northern Ireland which I personally believe would have a transformational effect not only on the evening economy, but on society in general. We have the fewest pubs per capita out of any region in the UK, and as a result we have the highest pint prices (higher even than London!).
It's been a tough few years weathering storm after storm. We're on course to produce around 2700HL in 2023, up from around 250HL in 2019 so we've grown very very quickly but it's not been without its challenges. We're very much bootstrapped and brewing requires a lot of capital investment in production equipment. Success for us in the short term is giving our production team the equipment they need to produce beer seamlessly. In the medium to long term, we'd love to move to a greenfield site to build a purpose built facility with on-site taproom, and driving change to society here in Northern Ireland through changing our licensing legislation
Q. If you could only drink one beer style for the rest of your life, but it has to be made by a different brewery, what would you choose and who would you want to make it?
I was going to say Helles, but if I could literally only drink one style for the rest of my life I'd probably go for something a bit more interesting as I'm assuming I could still drink soft drinks, so I'd go for Citra by Ards Brewing Company. Charles at Ards produces great, flawless sessionable beers on a very small scale and only delivers within a 7 mile radius of the brewery. Hard to get but well worth the trip to get them! The balanced hop and malt profile make this beer my go-to choice.
