Beamish to close

yknaa

Shame to see the Beamish brewey in Cork closing. It will still be brewed in Cork by Murphys/Heineken.

knightmare

yknaa wrote: »

Shame to see the Beamish brewey in Cork closing. It will still be brewed in Cork by Murphys/Heineken.

Damn shame allright. Competition authority really looked out for the consumer there!
At least it is still being brewed.
How long before a pint of beamish costs the same as guinness or murphys?

Sarky

If this results in the loss of Beamish Red I will be very, very angry.

yknaa

Big fan of Beamish Red too ... on the bright side maybe Heineken will promote the drink and get it into more bars around the country.

BeerNut

knightmare wrote: »

How long before a pint of beamish costs the same as guinness or murphys?

The brewery's death warrant was sealed by a set of e-mails from the Commercial Director written in 2004 and 2005 saying that it never intended to undercut Diageo and Heineken on the price of a pint of stout and was only holding off the price increases until the fuss died down. If the actual stated company policy had been to make Beamish a cheaper alternative to Guinness and Murphy's, the Competition Authority could likely have prevented the acquisition.

Another foreign-owned brewery making bland beer bites the dust. Sad from the point of view of local jobs, but as far as the drinks market goes it makes no difference.

LordSutch

So that leaves just two, Guinness & Murphys Stout > right?

BeerNut

Camelot wrote: »

So that leaves just two, Guinness & Murphys Stout > right?

Heineken will continue to make Beamish stout, for the moment anyway. I can see Beamish Red going before long: the Competition Authority noted that Ireland's ale market is miniscule -- it'll be hard for the Heineken execs to justify continued production of Beamish Red, I'd say (does Murphy's Red even still exist in this country?). And I reckon Smithwick's and Macardle's aren't long for this world either, with their home breweries closing shortly.

But the first impact of the Beamish closure is likely to be lager. The same company now makes Heineken, Miller, Coors Light, Amstel, Fosters, Kronenbourg and Carling. There isn't room for all of them. I'd advise any Miller drinkers to start shopping round for alternatives now.

Plus, there are more and much better Irish stouts than Guinness, Murphy's and Beamish, Camelot.

yoyo

I hope Fosters isnt affected by this :eek::eek:

Nick

yoyo

yoyo wrote: »

I hope Fosters isnt affected by this :eek::eek:

Nick

Heineken probably won't want to continue producing their rivals product :rolleyes:

yoyo

Deleted User wrote: »

Heineken probably won't want to continue producing their rivals product :rolleyes:

Feck them if so, having a few Fosters tonite and its much better value :pac: , Still theres always Bavaria, Prasky, Tuborg so not too worried

Nick

BeerNut

Deleted User wrote: »

Heineken probably won't want to continue producing their rivals product :rolleyes:

While Foster's owned B&C for a while, they've been out of the picture for quite a few years. It's possible that they'll want to keep this sub-prime lager alongside their own, Amstel, and I doubt if Fosters Group will have any problem renewing Heineken's licence to make it.

It's SABMiller who are Heineken's mortal enemy, and especially now that there are one or two Pilsner Urquell taps around.

eyebrows63

you can add scrumpy jack to the list of heineken products aswell. it used to be owned by s & n

brianthebard

I've not had a chance to try beamish red yet, raging!

niallo1

As a beamish drinker ... this is indeed sad news

bnt

I genuinely liked the Cork-made Miller: I thought it was better than the Miller I had in the USA a couple of years ago. (The opposite was true of Coors: can't stand it here, but it went down nicely at a hockey game in Denver last year.)

MattKane

That's a real shame. Should use the old building as a museum for beer. Legendary stuff.

noby

Deleted User wrote: »

Heineken probably won't want to continue producing their rivals product :rolleyes:

I read in an article recently that over 7M pints of Foster's were sold here last year - not sure how that compares with the others , but it seems a decent enough volume to keep it going.

BeerNut

On the other hand, you don't know how much Foster's Group charge for the licence to do that. Y'know, it's possible they may drop all the B&C licensed beers and stick with the brands they've acquired. A portfolio consisting of just Murphy's, Beamish Stout, Beamish Red, Heineken, Amstel and Coors Light seems to me like a good way to go, from a business point of view.

eyebrows63

there was an atricle in the sunday indo yesterday about heineken going after bulmers.

Dob74

What a joke the competition authority is. Beamish is probably the only quality product made in ireland cheaper than its rivals. I am sure hieneken will be changing that, first chance they get. Looking forward to see the apartment blocks and centra they build on the site.

BeerNut

eyebrows63 wrote: »

there was an atricle in the sunday indo yesterday about heineken going after bulmers.

Seems like a typically Sindo piece of made-up speculation to me:
C&C sell the Bulmers plant to Heineken for conversion into a brewery (why would Heineken want another brewery?) and use the money to buy HP Bulmer from its new owners Heineken, so they can then, what? Rebrand Magners as Bulmers? Make the stuff exclusively in the UK where, according to the Indo, the market for it "has collapsed", and then export it through Irish customs red tape?

I'd say Paddy Power would give you very good odds for that scenario.