Ale in a day's work
In The Simpsons, there’s a scene where the happiest moments of Homer’s life flash through his mind.
One of the memories he recalls is a day when a beer truck toppled onto its side and began spraying its cargo into the air.
Homer is shown gleefully dancing on the road, as the unexpected fountain of beer rains down upon him.
For local craft beer aficionado Simon Broderick, the employment equivalent of that moment came in August, when he started a full-time job as a Beer Specialist.
“They keep asking me in the office, why am I smiling all the time? It’s because I can’t believe my luck!” he says.
The Moate resident secured the new role with Rye River Brewing Company in Kildare, makers of the popular McGargles range. He supported and wrote about craft beer as a hobby for several years, but this is his first job in the industry.
Simon is married to Marina, who operates Bare Essentials waxing parlour on Athlone’s Sean Costello Street, and is the father of twin girls. For the last thirteen years, he worked for Carphone Warehouse, where he was a general manager.
In his spare time, he started a beer blog ('Simon Says… You really should drink this!’) and organised the Midlands Craft Beer Festival which has been held in Moate for the last two years.
When Rye River advertised for a Beer Specialist, the job - perhaps unsurprisingly - attracted a lot of attention.
“Some friends of mine said you couldn’t invent a better job for me; that it had my name all over it. So I had to go for it,” Simon explains.
“A couple of hundred people applied for it, some with more industry experience. I think my enthusiasm is definitely what swung it. My sales experience probably didn’t hurt either, even though it’s not a sales role, it’s a marketing role. You’re still selling the brand and selling the idea of craft beer.”
So, what does the work of a Beer Specialist involve on a daily basis? According to Simon, it varies a lot.
Last weekend he was in Cork, helping to run the McGargles stand at a beer festival.
Earlier in the week, he was in Castlebar, hosting a beer tasting for students. And a few days earlier, he was giving out samples of draught beer in a SuperValu store in Waterford.
“I am on the road a lot, and maybe don’t get to spend as much time at home as I did before, but the company is fair about it. If I’m working all weekend, or working on a Saturday, I’ll get another day back during the week.”
He says the job is about promoting the McGargles brand and encouraging people to taste the beers.
“The head brewer, Alex Lawes, is constantly tweaking and improving the recipes. So the beer is tasting really good.
“The job is about getting people, even if they’ve had it before, to try it again because it has definitely changed over the last year or so.
“It is a great job. There are other things you have to do as well. I was helping with a stock take last week, counting bottle openers. So that’s the less glamorous side of it.
“But, in fairness, I’m a lot happier going in to work now than I was before. The only day I gave out was when I had to drive the Ford Transit around Dublin city centre, having never driven a Ford Transit before!”
He is continuing to update his 'Simon Says...’ blog, though not as regularly as before.
“I had been (updating) it every second day, whereas now it’s once or twice a week. It’s hard, because I am busy and when I get home in the evening my wife, funnily enough, wants me to talk to her and not to be on my phone writing about beer!”
The number of breweries operating in Ireland has grown rapidly in the last few years, and Westmeath is one of the very few counties that is not home to a craft brewery at present. Why does Simon think that is?
“I don’t know. We were jokingly talking about setting one up in the old train station in Moate at one stage, but that was an after-a-few-pints job.
“Brewing itself is hard work, and opening a brewery is difficult as well. In Mayo, there are three or four breweries. The standard length of time for them seemed to be about three years, from inception to actually pouring a beer, because of all the red tape and everything else that you have to go through.
“There could be one in the planning stages here, and work going on behind the scenes that I don’t know about. I would be delighted to see one in Westmeath,” he concludes.