Brewing something wild in Ballymahon

Something unusual happened in Skelly's Bar during last month's Still Voices short film festival. Many of the customers in the Ballymahon pub began ordering a sour beer.

"There were pints of sour beer everywhere, and it was like, since when are people drinking sour beer?!" remarked Sean Colohan.

The beer in question - which had been launched in conjunction with the film festival - was the latest release from Sean's recently-established Wide Street Brewing Company in Ballymahon. He had delivered kegs of it to Skelly's for the festival weekend and, by 10.30pm on the Saturday, they were all emptied.

The enthusiastic local reaction is an encouraging sign for a brewery that is unlike any other in Ireland.

While there are numerous craft breweries making countless styles of beer, Wide Street is the only one in this country which makes all of its beers using a wild yeast called brettanomyces.

Using wild yeast means the beers take longer to brew than conventional craft beers, and their flavour will then evolve and develop over time.

"I’d say 99% of beers in the world are brewed with saccharomyces cerevisiae, which is an ale yeast," explained Sean. 

"Your normal pales ales and IPAs would be made with that yeast, and you can turn those beers around in about 10 days, whereas ours are being left for three months.

"It’s a slower fermentation and any residual sugars are totally fermented out to a dry style of beer. It’s like a continuous fermentation and flavour profile change."

To date, four different beers have been canned for release from the Wide Street brewery, which is located on Goldsmith Road in Creevaghbeg, Ballymahon. Sean explained that the wild yeast means the taste of each beer will differ depending on when it's opened.

"That’s the beauty of it. Even though it’s the exact same beer, two different people could be tasting different things, depending on the time that they have it. There’s no way of pinning it down.

"That’s why I like those (wild) yeast strains – it’s always something new every time you use it. You can leave the beers as long as you want, and the older the better in some cases, or you can drink them fresh.

"For example we brewed a pale ale which you can drink fresh, for a pale ale experience, or you can age it and it will develop some funkier flavours due to the brettanomyces yeast."

Sean grew up a stone's throw from the Wide Street premises. After home brewing for five years he began planning for the brewery, along with his girlfriend Carla Naltchayan and friend Sean Diffley, in 2017.

The fascination with wild yeast developed while he was home brewing. "I had never really been interested in chemistry in school, but (I got into) that side of things and ended up buying a microscope to analyse our own yeast cells and stuff like that.

"I just found that side of things more interesting. It’s kind of the unknown, and something some people are afraid of, but there’s no reason to be afraid of it."

Funding support for the brewery was provided through the LEADER project, and last December Sean invested further in equipment after being laid off from his job as a lottery machine repair technician with Scientific Games in Ballymahon.

"There were lay-offs there in December and I just reinvested the whole lot into this place, and gave myself a full-time job from that. It was straight to work again."

Wide Street's first beer, Brett Saison (an ancient Belgian style of beer) was released in May. While the beers are stocked at Dead Centre in Athlone and some other outlets around the country, Sean estimates about 60% of the output to date has been sold in or around Ballymahon itself.

"The local support has been top class," he said. There's a perception that people can be reluctant to try new and unusual styles of beer, but that's not been his experience so far. The fact that he's local and knows a lot of people in the town means there's a certain amount of interest and trust in the beers he's making.

"If you look beyond the science of it, at the end of the day it’s still beer and if it tastes alright to people they’ll probably keep buying it," he said.

While the use of wild yeast means the fermentation process has to be monitored carefully, there have been no real mishaps to date.

"We haven’t had to dump a batch yet, thankfully! We’re keeping a close eye on it, but once everything is clean and sterile you should be ok."

Ballymahon's profile has been heightened by the recent opening of Center Parcs. With the arrival of the brewery and events like the Still Voices festival, is it in danger of becoming a trendy town?

"A lot of people outside Ballymahon are saying that alright, but inside it we don’t consider ourselves trendy," he laughs.

"No, it’s a good community and people come together for various different projects. I suppose when you have a lot of driven people, with a lot of new projects, it makes it look like a trendy town from the outside. But we’ve always been like this!"

Looking ahead, he plans to experiment further with novel styles of wild beer and hopes to expand brewing capacity and hire staff in time.

Wide Street is one of the smaller breweries in Ireland and Sean said that, although there's been interest in exporting his beers to France and Russia, he doesn't currently have the brewing capacity to make this a reality.

"Basically, to make more beer we're going to need more fermenters. We have four fermenters at the moment and they’re all always full," he said.

Last Wednesday was a brewing day, as Sean started work on the latest incarnation of his Brett Grisette beer (another little-known Belgian style). While the hours can be long, it's clear he's thoroughly enjoying this journey so far.

"I’m happy out coming to work," he said. "To transition from doing something as a hobby to doing it full-time - I couldn’t have asked for more."