Brew your own hobby is now a whole lot more

Brew your own hobby is now a whole lot more

26 March 2014

IT sounds like the perfect business venture – a group of friends with a love of all things beer and a hankering for self-sufficiency are brewing their own in the middle of the country.

Surrounded by 360 apple and pear trees, 10 pigs, five chickens, four dogs, one goat, fruit and vegetable plots and a bee hive, the Farmageddon Brewing Co-op outside Ballygowan is crafting fine beer from some of the world’s rarest hops.

It started out as a hobby, but after brewing it for a party one of the guests turned out to a businessman who told them to start getting serious.

One of the seven brewers, Eoin Wilson, remains a full-time firefighter, and he is joined by an eclectic mix of friends who got to know each other from the martial arts or punk rock scene in Belfast.

“I started brewing around eight years ago,” said Eoin. “Three or four years ago we started collecting apples and two years ago one of my mates who can weld made a steel frame for an apple press. We thought, we have done it with apples, so what about beer?

“Anthony Farrell from the Aether & Echo Bar in Belfast tried it at a party and said : ‘This is great boys, what to do now?’

“We worked with him and got feedback and it went mental about 18 months ago. On top of that I got married and had a baby.”

With his wedding party in the barn where they now brew their beer it was a free bar for the lucky guests as Eoin put his ability to cater for large numbers to the test.

“There were about 200 to 300 people there and I had to provide all the beer for that,” he said. And while it would be easy to trade on their Irish roots for their home brewery business, Eoin said their product was “all about the taste”.

“It is a very clean yeast, there are very little esters,” he said, describing it as American in style. “We are all about the hops. We use some of the rarest hops from around the world.

“Nothing goes to waste — the hops and grains make wonderful food for the pigs, who in turn feed us.”

This month the the Farmageddon Brewing Co-op launched three of their craft beers — Gold Pale Ale (GPA), India Pale Ale (IPA) and India Export Porter (IXP). Eoin’s wife Rose explained more.

“The GPA is our lightest bodied beer designed to appeal to the lager drinker but with a lot more punch and aroma,” she said. “This ale contains some of the rarest hops varieties from around the world.

“IPAs were originally designed for the officers in colonial India as their beer had to be heavily hopped to survive the sea voyage from the UK. We follow this tradition, but use vast quantities of American hops for a modern twist.

“Lastly we have our IXP. Porter was traditionally the working man’s drink but it also had to be heavily hopped. These hops and various roasted grains form complex layers of thirst quenching bitterness leading to a delicious chocolatey orange finish.”

Rose said as part of their ethos as a small business, they hoped to reduce their carbon footprint with the use of solar power.

“Our beer contains no preservatives or fish by-products and we use natural carrageen from Strangford Lough as an alternative also making it suitable for vegans,” she said. “We believe in craft beer not chemical engineering, so the beer is unpasteurised and unfiltered as this can strip out flavour.”

They are trying to take each day as it comes they say, but the young brewers are also looking at the 360 trees surrounding them on their five acre homestead.

“The trees are in their infancy and we are hoping in the coming years to have a line of Farmageddon Cider and Perry from these ancient breeds,” said Rose. “The bees will help to pollinate all the plants.”