At first Joe Kearns of White Hag Brewery seems a little wary of us. Maybe he’s tired of questions from people who don’t care about beer. Maybe he’s just shy.
It’s all new for him, after all. Joe left his home in America to join a small team at White Hag in Ballymote where he now heads up production as Brewmaster.
Joe’s ears perk up when we ask about bottling line capacity. Paul Mullin is there too, the White Hag accountant. As is brewery founder, James Ward.
FROM OHIO TO BALLYMOTE
It’s not like he’s arrived in Ireland on a whim. Joe is a qualified brewer. After spending his teenage years brewing in the family garage with his dad, he landed a prestigious job as apprentice brewer at the Hoppin’ Frog brewery in Akron, Ohio.
The Hoppin’ Frog is an accomplished brewery. Joe served his apprenticeship under Fred Karm, a brewer who has 22 award winning beers to his name. In 2013, Hoppin’ Frog was voted Ratebeer’s Best Brewery in Ohio and the 17th Best Brewery in the World (out of 13,000 breweries). Not a bad place to learn how to brew.
Joe then moved on to become Head Brewer at Main Street Grille and Brewing Company in Garrettsville. He was happy there, until an advert on the Probrewer.com website peaked his curiosity. The job was for someone to head up a brewery in Ireland. Something different. A new challenge. It might be fun. He sent off his application. The first few meetings with James were over Skype. “I couldn’t understand a word James was saying,” says Joe. “And I don’t think he could understand a word I was saying either.” They both liked what they saw and soon Joe was on a plane across the Atlantic ocean. The White Hag was born.
It’s not like Joe isn’t connected to Ireland. He’s got a personal connection with the West. His grandfather was from Castlebar in Co. Mayo, a one-hour drive from Ballymote where his family lives now.
And Joe grew up watching his own father drink Guinness Extra Stout. His first forays in brewing were with stout. It became more than a hobby. It was a way of hanging out with his dad.
At the age of 17, he suggested brewing a special Father’s Day batch. His dad agreed and stumped up $40 for the materials. The deal was simple. Joe would brew and his dad would drink. This started happening more regularly. Once a month. Then every weekend. He was hooked.
Even when he was already brewing professionally, the support from his family still poured in. His mother bought him his own fermenter and still claims to this day that she is responsible for his professional brewing successes.
Sadly, Joe’s grandfather passed away recently, but he recalls the conversation they had just before he left for Ireland. “Don’t go,” the Mayo native warned. “You’ll catch pneumonia.” He hasn’t caught pneumonia yet, but he has been overwhelmed by the power of Irish family life. “It’s crazy when I go to Mayo,” he exclaims. “It’s like everyone there is my cousin.” Everyone in Mayo probably is his cousin.
These days, he’s still making stouts – imperial oatmeal ones, but he’s also making other beers with an Irish twist, including Ireland’s first Heather Ale. He draws some from the fermenter for us to try. It’s floral in aroma, very balanced in taste, a subtle caramel sweetness and soft bitterness.
WHITE HAG BREWERY
Naming the brewery fell to James as founder.
He’s from Keash, a stone’s throw from Ballymote, where there are a group of caves surrounded by folklore. They are said to be otherworldly and home to supernatural individuals. One story relates to the capture and imprisonment of Fionn McCumhail in the caves by the three hags of the Tuatha De Danann. One of these hags – a witchlike creature that could take the form of anything and anyone – was known as the White Hag.
After a number of years as a local publican, James worked as a distributor of craft beer in the United States. “I was inspired by the way Americans talked about craft beer and I wanted such a scene in Ireland,” he says.”I told myself I would start up a brewery in Co. Sligo. It took me four years to get it off the ground.”
James heard the story of the White Hag a number of years ago and knew immediately that this would be the name of his brewery. “Knowing that we would be initially targeting the American market, I didn’t want any paddywhackery, but rather something deeply connected with the local area in which the brewery sits,” he says. “She’s in everything, the spirit of the earth, so maybe she has caused some problems for the brewery.”
There have been many bumps in the road. Having researched and tracked down old-style beer bottles that the brewery staff were set on, they purchased the accompanying labels and machine for that particular bottle shape and size. But the company which produced the bottles stopped making them. White Hag Brewery now had an expensive bottling machine which couldn’t facilitate the new sizes. The White Hag was at work.
Funding too, was a problem. But they received Leader Funding to the tune of €90,000 to get the show on the road.
White Hag’s problems were still mounting as recently as last month when the Vintners’ Federation of Ireland banned their participation in the All-Ireland Fleadh in Sligo, one of the largest gatherings of people in Ireland’s event calendar. They had hoped to run a Craft Beer Emporium over the Fleadh week to launch their beers, but a license was denied on the grounds that ‘the publicans saw it as just another pub’ with the Judge questioning “what the opening of a brewery in Ballymote had got to do with Sligo.”
However, James is nothing but resilient and he consulted with Joe to discuss their options. Their decision was to launch a special one-off ‘Fleadh Ale’, a red IPA of 6.8% ABV (70 IBUs). Bars in Sligo rallied round to support White Hag; first the Swagman, then Lillies, 5th on Teeling, Shoot the Crows and The Dail Bar.
WHAT ARE THEY GOING TO BREW?
In order to deal with some of the financial challenges of starting a new brewery, James is keen to make use of his contacts and expertise as a distributor in the States and they plan to export a large percentage of their beer in the first few years.
“We’re focusing on extreme beers,” James tells me unashamedly. “We want to experiment and do things a little differently to everyone else in Ireland. Here, our mantra is ‘go big or go home’.”
This philosophy of brewing is shared by Joe. “If you want to brew Guinness or Heineken, go and work for Guinness or Heineken,” Joe says. “If you’re a craft brewer, you might as well put some watermelon in there. People should grow balls and brew beer.”
I notice their very own beer wall on one side of the brewery – a line of empty beer bottles which Joe refers to as ‘research’ and ‘tasting samples’. It includes a number of bottles from other Irish brewers as well as a range of prestigious Belgian brands. Chummy Bleue is there, as are Westmalle Dubbel, Timmermans, Duvel, Kwak and Delirium Tremens. “We’ve got through all of that in one month,” Joe says.
James talks about quality and especially about consistency, something which is a major issue for brewers in Ireland at the minute. They are hungry to experiment. They’ve developed what they refer to as an Irish Wit, essentially a Belgian style wheat beer with Irish ingredients. They’ve mixed this up with their American style IPA to produce a summer seasonal that they call their White IPA and describe it as ‘Wit beer on steroids’. They’re also producing an Imperial Oatmeal Stout at 10.2% ABV – the Black Boar.
“The water here is perfect for brewing,” says Joe. “And we’ve discovered bog myrtle on adjacent fields which we’ve been given permission to use.”
A guy in a White Hag t-shirt marches a group of young female students across the brewery floor and into a storage space, each of whom is carrying bunches of green-brown shrub under their arms and speaking in exotic continental accents. The guy in the t-shirt is Brian McTernan, the White Hag in-house historian. With his knowledge of ancient Irish history, he has been responsible for naming almost all of the White Hag beers so far.
“That’s the bog myrtle now,” James says. “Brian had a group of students from Belgium, France and Spain out picking it fresh this morning”. The students’ reward is personalised tasting in the brewery.
“Those bog myrtle leaves and flowers have a fantastic aroma when crushed down,” Joe explains. “Maybe a bit like a Gruut in Belgium.”
IRISH CRAFT BEER AND CIDER FESTIVAL 2014
White Hag made some ripples during their first big national public outing earlier this month when they took their beers to the Irish Craft Beer and Cider Festival:
To say that @whitehagbrewery has exploded onto the scene over the last few days would be an understatement. It's everywhere. Deservedly so.
— Dorothy (@DubBeerGirl) September 8, 2014
@whitehagbrewery's Oatmeal Stout might be the best thing I've ever tasted!
— Rob Crowe (@RobMacConradha) September 7, 2014
WILL JOE STAY?
It’s a big move for an American. Joe’s wife and two young children followed him to Ballymote this year. Ohio is not the West of Ireland and attitudes to craft beer are a lot more conservative than those in Akron or Garrettsville. Joe knows this himself. “Brewing in Ireland is where brewing in America was 15 years ago,” he says. “Sometimes I feel like I’ve stepped out of a time machine.”
But he’s already settled in. “Sometimes I even have problems on the phone to America,” he say. “I’m used to the accent here already.”
“I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering what might have been. Here, there’s so much we can do.”
I ask him how long he sees himself living in Ballymote. “As far as I’m concerned, I’ll die here,” he says.
