Last year’s recap was one of our most read blogs of the year, so I thought it would be nice to keep the tradition going and do a little recap of what we got up to in 2023, another pretty momentous year for Bullhouse.
January saw us start the year with an award nomination for Bullhouse East, for best New Business in East Belfast and an invitation to a black-tie dinner at the Stormont Hotel.
February saw us send our biggest order of the year off to Cave Direct for St Patrick’s Day and curate another beer list for The Dog and Bell's St Patrick's Day event in Deptford.
March came with Beer X and trip to Italy for some Tap Takeovers over St Patrick's Day.
April saw us invited to the opening of Titanic Distillery and we've stocked their products in Bullhouse East since and done a fair few events over the year together.
May saw us head down to Waterford for a tap takeover in Tully's Bar. We started working with Fourcorners in ROI and we've been delighted to be able to do more events across the island as a result!
June was a busy month, saw the return of our good friend Lionel Richie to Belfast and the commissioning of our new canning line as well as Bullapalooza and trade tastings in Manchester and London. We also started working with David and the team at Viti Pizzeria who make the best pizza this side of Naples.
In July we ran the bar at a very busy Eastside Electronics for the guys at The Night Institute.
August saw our mid-year staff do and pouring at Hilden Beer Festival.
In September we made the trek up to Donegal for Errigal Brewing Co's Oktoberfest and a surf lesson and headed down to Dublin for Rascal's Rocktoberfest.
In October we headed down to Galway for a collab with Galway Bay and attended Portrush Beer Festival.
November saw James and myself head over to Brau Beviale in Nuremberg to look at Keg Washer / Fillers and bumped into a few familiar faces!
Finally in December we picked up a few new tanks from December and had a very very busy Christmas and New Year at Bullhouse East!
Thank you to all of our team for making this the best year yet for Bullhouse!
2023 was not without it's challenges, but we've had a great year and thank you to all of our loyal customers for buying our beer both wholesale and consumer, and coming to Bullhouse East, we can't thank you enough!!
Here's to more great memories in 2024.
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Who knew beer could bring people together so well?
Of the 5 Executive parties, the SDLP, DUP, UUP and Alliance all supported the amendment, with only Sinn Féin voting against.
One of the difficulties we faced during our lobbying campaign were the policy advisors at the Department for Communities. When we met them in April 2019, they told us in no uncertain terms that breweries would not be allowed to operate taprooms 'in a million years as the pubs would never allow it.'
So to get this amendment added to the Bill in 2021 was a huge achievement, despite the best efforts of the Department and Hospitality Ulster to scupper it.
The University of Stirling were appointed as the body to conduct the research, and they are currently doing focus groups around NI.
If you live in the Ballycastle or Ballymena areas, they are looking for your views this week! More info available at the form below:
This coincides quite timely with a press release I saw recently on the back of Hospitality Ulster's AGM, which was picked up by the Belfast Telegraph and the Newsletter.
https://hospitalityulster.org/news/voice/HIGH-RATES-REMAIN-A-WRECKING-BALL-FOR-HOSPITALITY-SECTOR-SAYS-NEW-CHAIR-OF-HOSPITALITY-ULSTER
Hospitality Ulster does an exceptional job for their membership, and we agree with the vast majority of the issues raised in the press release.
However, we fundamentally disagree with their statement regarding the ongoing review into NI's licensing legislation which is as follows.
“The situation in our pub sector has been made even worse by the instability caused due to the ongoing review of the licensing structure which is being undertaken by the Department for Communities at a cost of £478,000. Following an amendment by the SDLP MLA Matthew O’Toole, the ongoing replaced a legal requirement on the DfC to undertake the review, which has now left the industry facing difficulties in financing as it leaves uncertainty and removes confidence for funders. These were difficulties which we highlighted at the time but were ignored”.
“If elected representatives want to support our rural and community pubs, they should start by recognising their social value and make them more sustainable by exempting them from crippling business rates rather than wasting time and money on an expensive review. it is important that they also understand how different our market is compared to Great Britain; we have a pub industry built on independent publicans who are part of the community they serve and provide products driven by consumer demand”.
What’s the problem?
Nearly every day, we see a new scandal leading to a huge funding shortfall here in NI. Billions needed for new sewage infrastructure, the Lough Neagh disaster, hundreds of millions on PSNI data breaches.
One of the best ways to fix these problems is to make NI a better place to live and work, and for tourists to visit and in doing so to grow the economy to a more sustainable position.
To a sector which contributes over £2bn to the NI economy every year, spending less than half a million to conduct the first major review into licensing in over 100 years seems like a no-brainer. The hospitality sector contributes £2bn every year despite having a 121 year old licensing regime which has never had a meaningful review to see whether it’s actually fit for purpose.
There are some stark realities facing the pub sector and consumers in NI:
Without the ability to create new venues, pubs have become increasingly large over the years.
This has a knock on impact in terms of business rates, as the rates multiplier increases with turnover (ie busier pubs pay a higher % of rates than quiet pubs).
The majority of countryside pubs are family owned and operated, where the family also owns the premises. As these venues have become so big over the years, if the family running the pub ever wants to sell, they are not really viable anymore for a new owner to come in and operate, by the time they take out a mortgage on the property. A lot of the time, the licenses get sold to an out of town supermarket, the pub gets redeveloped and the community loses a vital asset.
The majority of pubs in Belfast city centre are owned by a handful of very large local pub groups.
These groups lease many of their venues to tenants, but for these tenants, their hands are tied. The groups have deals with the multinational suppliers so the tenant has no choice what goes on the draught lines.
For example, the list price of a 50L keg of mainstream macro lager is usually around £170 Ex VAT (£3.40 + VAT per Litre). Normally, the multinational will offer a volume discount which starts at around £20 per keg in exchange for agreeing to a permanent tap. In the case of a leasehold pub, this volume discount goes straight to the landlord rather than the tenant. A lot of the time the funds for the group to purchase the property also came from the multinational brewery, which has a mortgage over the property.
This also means the tenant has no choice as to what products they are able to sell, essentially acting like the brewery tie in GB. One positive is that it was actually the brewery tie that eventually led to the loosening of licensing restrictions in England and Wales to increase competition.
This all contributes to the average price of a pint of mainstream Macro lager costing £6.10 in Belfast.
What's the solution?
Local beer isn’t actually any more expensive for pubs to buy than beer produced by a multinational. We see in Bullhouse East there’s a huge demand for locally produced beer. Consumer demand is there. We just can’t access the taps.
We sell 35% of our beer through Bullhouse East. We sell 5% of our beer in the rest of Northern Ireland.
If the hospitality sector wants to continue to grow and contribute more than £2bn to the economy going forward, we need to embrace the review into the current archaic system and we should welcome the competition. There's more than enough room for everyone!
Willy Mayne
MD
Bullhouse Brew Co Ltd
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We are extremely grateful for all the bars that are pouring Bullhouse across the UK, Ireland and further afield in Europe. We wanted to create a range of glassware to mark the occasion and really showcase the brand. We want all you hopheads to source these glasses and tag us when you’re out and about, whether it’s a Rolling Papers in the sun or a Road Trippin’ in the pouring rain, we’re here for it!
One of Belfast most beloved bars The Errigle has been flying the Bullhouse flag from the very start and we wanted to take this opportunity to pay homage to their loyalty and repay them with a shoutout. Located on the Ormeau Road, The Errigle is known for its wide and varied beer offerings, great atmosphere and live entertainment. The craft selection is always something to be admired and we are happy to be part of their craft line up every day. Paul Boyce, The Errigle’s GM had a few words to say:
“Bullhouse and The Errigle go way back to when Will was brewing out of the old bull house on his farm. He brought us some Small Axe to try and the rest is history. We always look to source good quality local beers and make sure there is an opening for any independent breweries looking to showcase their beers on our 5 craft lines that are on constant rotation. These local beers are great for tourists, regulars and first timers. We are proud to have Bullhouse on a permanent line and give all our patrons a small taste of Belfast brewing everyday.”
We want to thank Paul and his team for making us part of the Errigle furniture, most recently hosting a beer and cheese night with the lads from Indie Fude. It is events like this that give punters who may be new to craft beer the opportunity to try a variety of beers whilst also learning about the industry - the added bonus is it’s a great night’s craic!
Moving on from Ormeau Road to the city centre, in the heart of Belfast lies The Morning Star, another pub that we like to call home. Proudly owned and operated by the McAlister family since 1988, you can find this hidden gem by walking through Pottingers Entry, a narrow cobbled street running between two of the city centre’s busiest thoroughfares. They are one of Belfast’s oldest pubs dating back as far as 1810, first built as a coaching stop for the Belfast to Dublin post. Our new glasses can be found behind the bar where James and his team will be waiting to serve you some of the freshest brews in the city. James stumbled across our beers in a local off licence, and he has been a fan ever since.
“It’s great to have a local brewery that delivers quality craft beer, it has given the bar an option for something a little bit different. Rolling Papers complements the other beers we have on tap and it has allowed our customers to go on a better beer journey.”
Collaborating with establishments like the Errigle and the Morning Star isn’t just about pouring pints; it’s about building an authentic craft beer community. These beloved Belfast pubs aren’t just watering holes, the beers that these bars pour become part of conversations and celebrations, elevating brand awareness beyond labels and logos. These bars have stood the test of time thanks to the hard working individuals in them and the passion they have for hospitality in Belfast.
Let’s raise a glass to all the pubs in Belfast - Bullhouse glass or not, they should be celebrated and we’re excited to see the craft landscape slowly changing in Northern Ireland. We want to see more independent bars, more festivals, more events, and more home brewers turning their hobby into a permanent gig.
Cheers,
Team Bullhouse.
]]>We are thrilled to finally add the Republic of Ireland to a growing list of export markets for our products, including Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, France and Spain.
Fourcorners are one of the leading importers and distributors of award-winning craft beer and cider in Ireland. They source the finest premium beers from craft breweries across Ireland, Europe and the US and distribute to retail customers, bars and restaurants across the country.
William Mayne, our founder of Bullhouse Brew Co, said: “We’re delighted to finally launch in the Republic of Ireland and look forward to having our beer on sale in some of our favourite pubs and off-licenses on the island. It’s a very competitive market and we are thrilled to partner with Ireland’s leading distributor of craft beer, Fourcorners. Our beers will sit alongside some of the best in the industry and we’re looking forward to launching alongside some tap takeovers and collaborations.”
Paul Maher, Managing Director of Fourcorners, said: “It’s very exciting to have Bullhouse join our growing portfolio of world class craft beers, from this island and beyond. We were particularly impressed with the quality of the beers but also the strong brand and following Bullhouse have created over the past few years.”
We're also still buzzing about Bullhouse East's most recent achievement, being crowned the Best Craft Beer Bar (City) in the UK at BeerX, the UK's biggest brewing trade show. We were honoured to receive this recognition from our industry peers and would like to share our success with all the people that have been into the bar and shown us love and support since opening in June 2022.
We're starting to finally make some inroads turning Belfast into a better place for discerning beer drinkers! Our team of dedicated brewers and bar staff have worked tirelessly to create unique, high-quality beers.
We're also looking forward to the summer when we will be putting on a 3-day street festival - Bullapalooza - on Manderson Street. Keep your eyes out on all our socials for more information. Plenty of beer, cheer & atmosphere - Friday 9th - Sunday 11th June.
]]>We've done brief recaps of previous years, but as this has been a pretty momentous year for us here at Bullhouse I thought I'd try to put together a more comprehensive round-up.
Some figures to start with:
*Volume wise this still pales in comparison to most other independent breweries in the craft beer market, the likes of Deya, Cloudwater, Verdant etc are all well in excess of 10,000HL per year, but it's a figure we're really proud of as a bootstrapped small brewery from Northern Ireland given the unique challenges we face, and it's a testament to Mark and the rest of the brewing team to brew that amount of beer, at a world class standard, on a brewery we built ourselves out of old dairy tanks. To put it in context, Diageo package double that amount of beer (3000HL) every day JUST INTO CANS at their Marshall's Road site.
**Credit to James McBride for developing the recipes on these.
So it's been a busy year by any stretch of the imagination, given we also opened Bullhouse East on the 13th June.
The original idea behind Bullhouse was to bring new styles of beer to market in Northern Ireland. Back in 2015 that sounded like a good idea, but now we've got such a diverse local offering and such a wide variety of beer available on shelves across the country, we're now completely focused on working to create more independent licensed premises and transforming the evening economy.
This time last year we were preparing for a busy year ahead, a team of 3, me, James and Jonny. Recovering from Explosion Soundsystem's Christmas Reggae Party at the brewery, we'd just brewed a collab with Andrew and Neil at Beer Hut, and Bullhouse East was still a good bit away from being finished. We managed to secure national distribution with Cave Direct which shifted our focus from predominantly selling small pack beer to predominantly selling draught, something that took us a while to adapt to but is so much easier than producing small pack.
Moving into February we brewed our collab with Belfast Women's Beer Collective, launched our new nitro stout, Big Fish and launched our new can designs, expertly put together for us by Stuart at Quayle Design. We threw a little research trip to Dublin into the mix.
March saw us gather up a load of local beer in cask format for Seamus's St Patrick's Day festival at The Dog and Bell in Deptford. We also took a trip over to Liverpool for the UK's largest beer trade show, Beer X, where we managed to pick up a Business Innovation Award for securing the first new license in East Belfast for 20+ years.
April saw a few tap takeovers in Manchester at Tariff and Dale and London at Beer and Burgers along with a trade tasting at Beer Merchants and the arrival of all our new brewing equipment.
May saw final preparations underway at Bullhouse East. Some bribes in beer form were offered to get it over the line as quickly as possible.
June saw the launch of Bullhouse East. Saturday 18th June has been our busiest day to date! We quickly realised we'd need a van as the kegs were being drunk thick and fast with daily runs required from the brewery. We also squeezed in a little trip to Yakima Chief's facility just outside Brussels for some hop focused seminars.
The crowds kept coming in July. We've been overwhelmed with support since we opened and it's been far busier than we ever expected. We had a hiccup in July when I managed to close the back shutter on a mop brush which derailed it. We also attended Manchester Craft Beer Festival, with Karson and Ross seeing some old pals and making some new ones.
August saw the return of London Craft Beer Festival, a truly sweaty affair in the cave and big up to Connor and Junior for holding down the fort in some pretty challenging conditions. We also did our first company wide away day, hiring a bus and taking in the sights of the Ards Peninsula. Snuck in another trip to Dublin to launch our collab with Hopfully.
September came and we launched our hand pull in Bullhouse East, allowing us to join the very very very select club of venues serving cask beer in NI. We also hosted a very busy Oktoberfest at Bullhouse East, and got our fermentation control panel fitted in the brewery. Before that, everything was controlled with remote chillers and Inkbirds. Big up to Kat and Liv for making our chalkboard in Bullhouse East look like something decent all year as well. The first few weeks the handwriting it was pretty much indecipherable.
October began with us lagging all the new glycol pipework. We also hosted Hopfully for another of our regular collabs and made it up to Portrush for a welcome return to the beer festival.
November saw us head to Leeds for yet another TTO at Eat Your Greens. We'd rented a van and drove over as we were picking up a keg washer en route. We didn't have time to check in to our Airbnb before the event, but unfortunately both of our (me and Junior) phones had died by the end of the night, so we went back to the van to charge our phones and ended up falling asleep in the van till 6am, wick. We also ended up filming something for TV in the new year!
That brings us up to December. We've had another busy month, Exale collab and TTO and another tap takoever in London, this time at The Cock Tavern in Hackney, taking in a trip to Deptford for a game of bar billiards, should we put a table into Bullhouse East? We rounded off the year with the production team staff do in Bangor, Holywood and East Belfast. Bullhouse East staff do will happen in the New Year, where we'll close for the day for a well deserved break.
All in all it's been a busy year. I'd like to thank all of our team for all their hard work this year. We've grown from a team of 3 to a team of 26 in 12 months. To be in a stronger position now than we were last year and to have achieved all we've achieved this year wouldn't have been possible without a great team working exceptionally hard.
Big thanks to Stuart at Quayle Design for another year of hard graft, he's the reason we've been able to up our game on socials and release all the new beers with great looking labels.
Production wise, we've worked hard to improve our infrastructure at the brewery with the ultimate goal of increasing batch size with minimal extra effort required. Any time processes are automated it brings challenges, and we've had plenty of challenges this year with equipment malfunction and breakdown and all the usual fun stuff that comes with manufacturing.
Despite all those challenges, we've consistently brewed world class beer on a kit no better than a big homebrew kit.
We're still continuing to export our beer, although we've done less this year as we've focused on the local market. Our friend Michele at Sofismi Birra in Italy is our fifth biggest customer and we'll look to continue to expand our exports as our volume grows.
I'd like to thank all of our customers, both trade and public, for all your support this year, as well as our suppliers who continue to supply us with world class ingredients despite all the challenges we've faced in the past few years. Big thank you to AES Marconi for the Bullhouse East fitout as well as Katie and Ian at Hall McKnight for the architectural expertise converting a building that was falling apart.
I want to sign off with some reflections, having now operated both a brewery and a bar, followed by a look ahead to 2023.
Running a brewery in the current economic climate is tough, really tough. You just need to look at the amount of brewery closures in GB this year (around 90) to see what's happening in the market due to the energy crisis. Our energy bill has gone up from around £1500 a month to over £6000 a month at the brewery. That's even with the government support being applied (without it our bill would be about £15k a month, which would be unsustainable).
We also pay about £6000 a month in beer duty. That's despite receiving Small Brewers' Relief, which celebrated its 20th anniversary this year.
From my perspective, manufacturing should be receiving support far in advance of retail and hospitality. Throughout Covid, hospitality businesses in NI were propped up to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds, while manufacturing received peanuts in comparison.
Manufacturing contributes massively to the economy in NI yet is always the last to receive support. People are proud of products manufactured here and passionate about supporting local. Running any manufacturing business is a challenge. They are complicated businesses as you're making something from scratch, the margins are generally lower and you generally have to give credit terms to wholesalers. Compared to hospitality, it's a more complicated product to get right, it's more energy intensive, it's got a lower margin and it's got worse cashflow.
One of the ways we've been able to mitigate the challenges faced by the brewery this year has been opening Bullhouse East. There's a myth peddled by Hospitality Ulster and the large pub groups operating in Northern Ireland that brewery taprooms will compete with local pubs. It's a rich analysis to make given NI has the lowest amount of pubs per capita out of any region in the UK.
We like to think we've created another venue in East Belfast to give people another reason to come out to the area, eating in local restaurants, visiting other pubs nearby and creating another local community gathering spot in a country with fewer and fewer every year as Tesco, Asda etc snap up all the licenses.
Breweries need taprooms, it's becoming an increasingly essential part of the business plan. To that end, as Chair of the North West Region of the Society of Independent Brewers, I've joined the Reference Group on the Independent Review into the Surrender Principle in Northern Ireland, to continue to lobby for its removal. One of the major successes of our lobbying campaign in 2021 in that an amendment (proposed by Matthew O'Toole MLA and supported by all of the Executive parties other than Sinn Fein) was made that mandated the Department for Communities to conduct an independent review of the surrender principle within three years. The Reference Group is a small group of government departments and trade bodies, weighted heavily with people who have a vested interest in maintaining the surrender principle, so it will be an uphill struggle but you can't effect change if you're looking in from the sidelines.
At some stage in 2023, we're likely to hit the new cap of 2100HL for Small Brewers Relief. As things stand, when the new rates of duty come in this February (yes in two months) the UK is diverging from EU legislation on alcohol duty. This means the new rates of duty won't apply to breweries (or distilleries) based in NI. I was elected to sit on the Board of SIBA to fight the case for all the breweries in NI at a national level. However, the treasury are still not sure what's going to happen come February in relation to breweries in NI. It's a hard enough time trying to run a business in the current economic climate without having the added complexity of not knowing what our duty rate will be next year. Around 40% of our beer is sold in GB and that's likely to grow next year.
Please continue to support local breweries in Northern Ireland who are facing unprecedented challenges in the most challenging market in Europe to operate in.
To summarise, we've come a long way in a year. We've brewed truly world class beer, and we've opened a great community gathering spot in the heart of East Belfast. Thank you also to our investors for supporting us this year and my wife Christie for all of your support and advice.
Thank you to everyone who's purchased a Bullhouse beer, visited Bullhouse East or supported us in any way this year. Here's to 2023!
Cheers,
Willy Mayne
We've been open for 5 months now! After waiting for 4 years to get open, these last 5 months have flown in. Thank you to all of our customers and staff for a great 5 months!! Things have been way way way busier than we ever imagined.
6 months ago, we were a team of 4 people, we're now a team of 25 and we've got several exciting updates to share.
A couple of months after opening we asked for some feedback, and one of the most common suggestions was to try to dampen the noise on Friday and Saturday nights when we're really busy. So we pulled the trigger on loads of acoustic panels, and over the past few weeks you might have noticed them going up. They've had a huge impact in dampening the noise levels, especially when we're busy.
We've also received a lot of feedback in relation to hours of operation of our food offering. To keep things simple at the start, we brought in The Boxing Hare to run our pizza oven as the pizzas are great.
We're constantly being asked if we can start offering food earlier and if we can offer food every day. We want to be able to get to that stage before Christmas.
The only way to expand our food offering has been to bring it in house. So we have an exciting new food offering launching this week!
We'd like to thank The Boxing Hare for serving up some deliciously tasty pizzas these past 5 months and of course their pizzas will still be available across town at the Sunflower.
We'll be continuing to focus on pizzas, but will be expanding our menu and extending our hours of service in the run up to Christmas.
We're also in the process of applying for our Entertainment License and additional permitted hours, meaning we'll been opening later on Friday and Saturday nights from the middle of December all being well, and will be bringing in some DJs at the weekend to spin some vinyl.
Last week we took delivery of a brand new (to us) 25HL brewhouse and 6 additional 25HL FVs.
Currently we’ve been maxed out brewing 30HL per week on our 10HL dairy tank system with 2 x 20HL FVs and 5 x 10HL FVs.
If anyone’s ever visited the brewery, you’ll know our dairy tank brewhouse is very basic, and that’s the way we like it! Little moving parts = less to break. Some things aren’t ideal, but we average a mash efficiency of around 85%. There are some constraints though, our rectangular kettle makes whirlpool additions impossible and we’re having to brew over consecutive days to fill our double size FVs.
We’ve always invested more heavily in our cold-side equipment than in any hot-side stuff, because you can make really good wort on pretty basic kit, but you can’t make really good hoppy beer with poor quality cold-side equipment.
We ended up going for a system from a cask brewery in England that had closed down. We now have a 50HL direct fire HLT, 40HL German made mash tun (with side manway) and a 30HL direct fire kettle. It’ll take us a few weeks to commission, but once we’re up and running we’ll be able to double our weekly production to 60HL with the same amount of effort.
Since January, we’ve been putting about 70% of our beer in keg. Most is going to GB through our partnership with Cave Direct. With a small but increasing amount of permanent lines opening up, we’ve had to keep our customers supplied with a steady stock of beer. That’s meant our web shop has been a bit scarce and we’ve not has as many cans out in the wild as we’d like.
Here's some pictures of the new tanks going in, big thanks to Frederick Jones beside us for letting us use their loading bay to offload the container after we had a few struggles with the telehandler.
In addition to the new brewhouse and FVs, we also now have a proper control panel and glycol system to make monitoring fermentation a bit easier for the production team.
Here's some pics of the action.
]]>Just to give a bit of background as to how a license for a one off taproom is currently obtained in Northern Ireland.
Each of the ~1200 pubs in Northern Ireland has the ability to apply for occasional licenses. These are licenses where the pub can trade outside it’s licensed premises and requires an application to be made to the District Court, the Commander of the District Police Station, and to the local Council.
Up until lockdown, these applications were processed at Court by the Court Clerk.
The most well known use of occasional licenses is Belfast Continental Market at City Hall. This is a 6 week long event where occasional licenses are stacked back to back. Each license can last up to 6 days in a row.
Ravenhill rugby ground had to use occasional licenses each time they had a match until the legislation was updated in 2016 for National Stadia.
Looking at Schedule 30 of The Licensing (Northern Ireland) Order 1996.
Until the middle of 2021, we had no issues with being granted an occasional license (as long as we found a pub willing to lend us one). We submitted the paperwork at least 14 days before the event and we were always successful, the Clerk signed it off.
However, during lockdown, some pubs opened pop up venues in Belfast city centre. These venues facilitated the licensing of outdoor space in-between lockdowns, great for the city.
Hospitality Ulster even worked with the Courts to ensure the licenses passed with no issue. However, facilitated by our absurd monopolised licensing legislation, pubs don’t like competition, or change. Innovation, change, anything that will create competition is shot down before it even gets off the ground. The rise of pop-up bars led to complaints being made to the Court. As a result, every occasional license application made to Belfast Court district is now scrutinised by a judge.
Some of the pop-up venues lost their license for short periods and had to implement other methods to get around the legislation, such as payments to charity on entry, or provision of entertainment where the customers are ‘paying in’ to see the entertainment.
As per the legislation, an occasional license can only be used where alcohol is ancillary to the main purpose of the event. Therefore, it’s pretty difficult to justify a taproom in a brewery. Or a beer festival. We’re wondering how beer festivals will get the go-ahead in the future if the legislation is applied to the letter of the law as is happening currently.
So every taproom we’ve run at Boucher for the last 12 months or so has had to go in front of the Judge.
They aren’t hugely profitable events, the main reason we run the events is to give people somewhere different to go and to allow people to come in and see the brewery. The lack of certainty around whether we will actually get the license makes it very difficult to justify investing in it in any major way. For that reason, we’ve always represented ourselves at Court. Most of the big city centre bars use a solicitor, but they’ll charge £350-500 for the pleasure and you still have to go and swear in at Court in front of the Judge with no guarantee of success. The application itself is £130 for 2 days, so the costs soon add up, with portaloo hire, staff, energy costs etc.
The event this weekend was the first one that’s been rejected, and unfortunately we don’t see any way around this with the current legislation. The new local producers’ license will allow us to open at the brewery 104 times per year, but it doesn’t kick in until 1st June and there are still a lot of unanswered questions around whether we’ll need planning permission, whether we’ll be able to use occasional licenses to host beer festivals / bigger events in the future (on the same premises) and how it will impact on our business rates.
We’re currently in the process of applying for an entertainment license for the brewery. This means we’ll be able to host gigs and bigger events. It requires jumping through a lot of hoops, but we’re nearly there.
When we got our license through Court for Bullhouse East in the summer, we effectively had a veto on anyone else coming into the area. We were asked if we’d like to veto Boundary’s license application. We rejected this offer to suppress innovation and stifle competition, much to the surprise of the solicitor given the vultures that operate in the licensed trade in NI. Competition isn’t something to be feared, it helps keep innovation alive and helps create better venues for the whole community.
With the election coming up, we're firmly of the belief that the Executive missed a massive opportunity to reform licensing legislation, instead making minor tweaks and kicking it down the road. We received some great cross party support from individual MLAs during our campaign for a radical overhaul, from the likes of Rachel Woods (Green Party), Matthew O'Toole (SDLP), Kellie Armstrong (Alliance), Andy Allen (UUP) and Jonathan Buckley (DUP). When they're on your doorstep asking for your support, we'd really appreciate it if you could ask their opinion on the current licensing legislation and whether they support the removal of the 'surrender' principle. This is the main reason why we can't have nice things in NI.
For some light at the end of the tunnel, Bullhouse East is nearing the final stages of construction. It’s been a much bigger project than initially anticipated. Essentially the building structure wasn’t in great shape, so that any structural alterations have taken much longer than we planned for. Add in Brexit / The Protocol, Covid and now the war in Ukraine, everything costs a lot more and takes a lot longer.
We’re currently waiting on the motors for the ventilation system, which are due to arrive on 6th April. This is holding everything up, but the building work will be finished in April. Before you begin trading, the Judge needs to give final approval. Because we missed the 1st April court date we’re now in to the end of April / start of May for the next available date.
We’ll be posting more photos on the Bullhouse East socials in the coming weeks. It’s been a pretty hectic time here but we’re really looking forward to getting the doors open and putting 20 fresh beers on and welcoming in the whole community.
Finally, we’re putting a hand pull in the Bullhouse East. We’ll try to do our own cask from time to time, but we’re hoping it’ll mainly be for pouring fresh pints of Ards Brewing, in homage to our Ards roots, but also because we’ve always been big fans of Charles and his beers, and they work wonderfully well on cask.
We got a new hand pull for the taproom this weekend, and we’ve already tapped and vented a fresh cask of Small Axe. Because we’re still allowed to give beer away for free without a license, we’ve decided to open the brewery for 2 hours this Saturday (2nd April) from 4pm-6pm. We have one cask (72 pints) which will be served on a first come first serve basis, in proper glassware.
We won’t be accepting any payments, but we will be encouraging donations to the UNHCR Ukraine Emergency Appeal, if you’d like to contribute in some way.
Much love,
Bullhouse
]]>Today we’re happy to let you know about our new look. We’ve had a few facelifts over the past 4-5 years as the brewery has evolved from little more than a hobby, to what it is today, five people's livelihoods.
We’ve been in our new premises for a little over 12 months now. 2021 has been a huge year for us. We've secured a license to open the first new bar in Belfast in around 30 years and we've had our beer pouring in multiple export markets around the world.
As our net has been cast wider and people from Barcelona to Verona have been enjoying our beers and we've started distributing on a national level in GB, we've been thinking about our packaging and whether it reflects the massive changes we've had in our business over the past 12 months.
As a result, we decided to look at how we could do things differently.
We’re delighted with the quality of our beers. We’ve poured alongside some of the best breweries in the world this year and we’re pleased with how our beers stand up to the toughest competition. This is despite the fact we still make beer using a brewhouse cobbled together with 3 old dairy tanks from farms around Ireland. #upcycling
We’ve invested where it matters, in our cold side and we can make incredibly consistent, world-class beer.
To reflect these changes, we’re proud to showcase our new look!
To start with, we have some new specials. The cores will look slightly different over the coming weeks and months and are being extended, but in the meantime, we have the following beers launching today:
Black Velvet
Collaboration with our friends at The Dubliner Irish Whiskey. A full bodied, velvety Irish stout aged in The Dubliner Irish Whiskey casks for 9 months.
Suds
A hazy, pillowy-soft DDH Pale Ale brewed with oats, fermented on our house blend.
These will be followed by:
Rolling Papers
Multiple dry-hop additions combine with the fruity esters of our house blend to give you something hazy and immensely crushable.
Dry Hopped Singles Club - Mosaic
A series of pillowy-soft, juicy NEIPAs fermented on our house blend, showcasing some of our favourite hops.
Doublethink
A big ol' juicy banger of a DIPA. Fermented low and slow on our house blend to reduce ester formation and maintain the thick, creamy body we love.
We hope you enjoy them (responsibly) and look forward to seeing them out in the wild.
Bullhouse
]]>The usual model for a recently opened brewery in GB is: start producing (keg only), selling at a high margin directly to your consumers at your taproom, with 90%+ of your income coming via high margin, cash sales. Once an established customer base has been established, go to the bank (or investors) and secure funds to grow into a bigger unit, invest in quality packaging equipment and start distributing beer outside the immediate vicinity.
The NI model: gather together whatever cash you have (fat chance getting anything off the bank with no local market) to cobble together a brewhouse and packaging equipment. As there’s no good packaging equipment available on a budget, it generally involves cobbling together pretty basic kit.
There’s no such thing as a taproom available to the majority of new breweries in NI, there’s also no draught taps because remember, 99% of taps are tied to the big 4. Even when the new legislation comes into force in April 2022 (or maybe not even in 2022 given a recent press release from the Department!), most breweries will be unable to comply with the red tape that will no doubt be put in place.
As a result, NI breweries are thrust into the cut-throat world of beer distribution from the get go. What does that mean? It means packaging beer without having any way of measuring the key parameters of packaged beer. A dissolved oxygen meter is around £6k, a CO2 measuring device is £1500, any kind of semi automated canning equipment is £30k+. You can see how you’d need pretty deep pockets to get started in any meaningful way.
In the GB model, by the time you’ve established your taproom as a profitable, cash positive business, the bank is willing to lend you a bit of cash to invest in adequate equipment which allows breweries to have confidence in their product on the shelf, as well as the economies of scale to hit the price that retailers demand.
In the NI model, as a very, very small start up brewery, you’re directly competing against these much larger businesses. When a customer walks into a shop to purchase beer, they don’t know that two beers beside each other on a shelf, both seemingly from small breweries, could be so different.
Anyway, moral of the story is, we’re only here thanks to the support of the local beer scene, who’ve supported us since the first bottles of El Capitan hit the shelves back in the day.
In March 2021, we received a call to submit beers for We Are Beer’s Raise the Bar competition. This is a competition to find the UKs most exciting new breweries. Previous winners include Vault City, Unity, Turning Point and Dig Brew Co.
It’s judged by an expert panel including Jaega Wise, Natalya Watson, Mark Dredge among others.
Out of 60+ entries, we were selected alongside Beak, Newtown Park, Pastore, Alpha Delta and Attic.
Covid delayed the festivals, but we managed to make it to all 5 in the end, taking in Manchester, Bristol, London, Edinburgh and finally Beer Central in Birmingham.
Being on the Raise the Bar programme was a great experience for us, we met some great likeminded breweries and we don’t feel like the isolated little cousin over in Belfast anymore.
It wouldn’t be a Bullhouse trip without a bit of last-minute drama.
In Bristol we arrived on the Friday afternoon to the news that our kegs hadn’t been delivered. Big shout out to Rob at Bristol Beer Factory who had a pal with a van who picked our kegs up from the transport depot otherwise we’d have had no beer.
Big thanks to Chris at Cask and Craft also for sorting out some last-minute logistics at Beer Central too.
Finally thanks to Greg, Jim and the team at We Are Beer for inviting us and for all the work that goes into these festivals much to the joy of the craft beer community in the UK.
Once our bar opens you can expect some of these guys to be over in Belfast for tap takeovers, not long now!
Here's a few snippets of the summer.
Nice quiet moment during Bristol Craft Beer Fest
Bristol Craft Beer Festival
Tobacco Docks - London Craft Beer Festival
Our view for most of the summer:
James actually helping at a collab - makes a first.
Collab at Attic
End of the night at TTO in Cask and Craft, Boldmere.
]]>8XL Beers?
Today we’re letting the cat out of the bag on a project that’s been three years in the making. We’ve run into numerous brick walls and hurdles along the way and thought it would be useful to share our story, not only on the absurdities we faced along the way but also to thank the numerous people along the way who’ve believed in our plans and supported us.
Way back in September 2018 we got in touch with Eastside Partnership when we knew the original 500sqft Bullhouse was going to be outgrown. We wanted to find a location in east Belfast for the brewery. There’s a lot happening in the east and there’s a lot more still to happen that we’re excited about. With the help of Eastside Partnership, and Maurice Kinkead in particular, we managed to find a unit on the Newtownards Road, the former 8XL menswear shop just beside the Holywood Road junction and right beside the Glider stop.
The initial plan was to open Belfast’s first brewpub. We applied for planning permission and because we were applying for B3 General Industrial permission in a retail zone, we had to jump through loads of hoops in terms of noise impact assessments and odour assessments as the Council didn’t to set a precedent that B3 use could be obtained in a retail zone.
Then we hit our first major roadblock, the sewage infrastructure problems we have in NI. To connect a brewery to the public sewage system you require trade effluent consent. Unfortunately, ~75% of wastewater treatment facilities in NI are at max capacity, which means no new connections are being granted. Gavin Robinson MP was extremely helpful in fighting our case, and finally we got consent, but only if we installed a holding tank in the rear yard, with a timer that discharged our trade effluent from 10pm-7am when the sewers are at reduced capacity. This was going to cost quite a lot of money but we thought it might be workable.
As a sidenote, NI Water estimate they require £2.1Bn to upgrade the sewage system to deal with current capacity. Major infrastructure developments are having to install their own treatment facilities as they can’t connect into the public network. Because sewers aren’t sexy it’s not widely reported, but it’s a serious issue facing NI, nearly as serious as the health crisis because it’s affecting our ability to attract inward investment and grow the economy.
Finally, we needed to take a sample of the floor to make sure we wouldn’t collapse the building into the Connswater when the tanks were full of beer. Unfortunately the results came back that we’d need to dig the floor out and put a new 6” slab in, this was the final nail in the coffin so we decided to look for somewhere else to move the brewery to.
Basically after 18 months we were back to the drawing board. We signed for the unit in Boucher in June 2020 and finally moved in in September, where we have 6000sqft to grow into.
We then looked into the possibility of getting a premises license for the brewery at Boucher.
As we’ve shouted about from the rooftops for the last 5 years, the licensing system in NI is 120 years old and not fit for purpose. Stormont had the chance to fully reform the legislation but instead decided to tinker with opening hours and kick the can down the road.
For a bit of background, there are 1200 licenses left in NI, and to open a new venue you need to buy an existing licensee out. However, if you buy a countryside pub and want to move the license into a different area, you need to make sure no one in the area you’re moving the license into objects.
Usually (in Belfast especially) this involves brown envelopes full of cash. Cash that we don’t have!
Anyone with a license in the area you’re wanting to move into can object on the grounds of competition, because at the end of the day a license is a license, whether you’re selling macro lager or selling local beer. So no matter what you dress it up as, in the eyes of the law a license is a license.
The main problem in NI is that the supermarkets end up buying up most of the pub licenses, using them to do off-sales as a full pub license allows you to do on or off sales. When a new supermarket opens, generally that means a community somewhere has lost their local pub. This is a major crisis that has led to Northern Ireland as a region having the fewest pubs per capita in the UK. It removes competition for the existing pubs and drives prices up at the expense of the consumer. It makes people drink at home because they can buy cheap beer in the supermarket and it deprives rural communities of their local pub.
After making enquiries about obtaining a license for Boucher, we were told we had no chance as we’d be competing directly with a multinational supermarket chain.
Luckily, we still had the option on the unit in east Belfast, so we made enquiries. East Belfast has hardly any pubs. Over the last 20 years, the number of pubs in east Belfast has fallen by 50%.
During Covid, the price of a license actually increased as there was a huge amount of support for the sector from the NI Executive. For the larger pubs with a rateable value over £50k (ie their estimated rental value as assessed by LPS), the Large Hospitality and Tourism Support Scheme alone paid out over £30m to around 280 venues in grants. Pubs are rated via LPS on the receipts and expenditure method, which is a calculation of their estimated rent based on a multiple of their net profits.
To apply for the pub license we had to obtain further change of use planning permission on the property, this time from brewery to public house. We then found a clean license from a pub that was closing down, paid an option agreement, secured a barrister and solicitor and got a date in Court. We also had to prepare a report of the vicinity from a planning expert.
In NI, the default position is that no new licenses are to be issued (ie pubs can’t move their license to a new area) unless you can prove to the Court that there is a requirement for a new license in the area that you want to move it into, based on traffic data, population density, the existing licensed premises in the area etc.
We had been told to expect some pubs in the area or just outside the area to ask for bribes in exchange for not putting in an objection. Not because this is unique to east Belfast, but that it’s the norm in licensing in NI in general. Thankfully no pubs in the immediate vicinity that we had drawn up decided to object, but one pub just outside the vicinity (further out of town) did threaten to object unless we paid a bribe.
We decided we didn’t want to start paying people off, so we ignored their request and in the end it was a speculative effort at getting some cash as no objection came in during the notice period before our Court date.
The last piece of the puzzle was financing the project. We’d thought about crowdfunding but in the end we found a few local investors who believe in the vision we have for creating a community focused neighbourhood bar in the heart of east Belfast.
We’re planning to open this side of Christmas, and we’ve decided not to go for a late license so we’ll be closing at 11pm. Long term plans include the launch of a casual Saturday morning cycling club (our beer garden will back onto the greenway) and regular tastings and events such as homebrew classes.
Beer wise, we’ll have between around 20 taps of the freshest beer available. With around 10 taps dedicated to our own beers with the rest being rotating guest taps with maybe one or two permanent lines of the beers we love to drink. We’ll be fully independent with the ability to offer whatever product we choose. We’ll also have a dedicated off-license including the largest selection of beer, wine and spirits in east Belfast.
We’ll also be doing a pretty major expansion at the brewery in Boucher. The plan is to upgrade to a 20HL 3 vessel custom made brewhouse, and more than double our fermentation capacity. We’ll also be installing a coldroom among upgrades to the floor, the chilling system and the canning machine. Finally (if the new producers’ license allows) we’ll be opening a gift shop with a permanent weekly taproom at the brewery and offering tours of our premises.
See you for pints before Christmas?
]]>It was a big risk to move to our new premises in Belfast at the end of last year. We moved from a 500sq ft shed to a 6000sq ft warehouse. Rent, rates increases and finance on equipment all adding to our overheads. One of the potential upsides was the ability to host regular taprooms thanks to the friends we have in the pub trade.
Taprooms are crucial for breweries around the world to generate some much-needed cashflow, and they give us the satisfaction of seeing the local community enjoying the fruits of our labour. Given the lack of opportunities to sell draught beer in NI, the majority of our kegged product is sent to GB (more on that at some point in the near future). We get over for some beer festivals and tap takeovers, but until we moved to the new brewery, flying to GB or visiting one of the excellent (but very few) local pubs in NI that serves our beer on draught was the only opportunity we got to see people enjoying the beer we spend so much effort making.
Moving to new premises during the pandemic meant we knew we’d only be able to run taprooms between lockdowns. It’s also a pretty arduous process for us to actually run a taproom, having to apply to the Court every time with at least 14 days’ notice. When the post-Christmas lockdown happened, we knew we’d need to focus on export markets to keep the lights on.
Whatever your views on the NI Protocol (and it’s caused us plenty of issues getting some ingredients from GB), it’s been great from an export point of view.
Being in the single market means we can send beer throughout the EU without too much hassle. The duty still has to be paid by the importer and there’s a bit of paperwork involved, but there’s a lot less red tape than if we were sending our beer from GB into the single market.
We’ve managed to pick up distribution in some key target markets like the Republic of Ireland, Spain and Italy and we’re nearly over the line with a distributor in the Netherlands. We can continue selling our beer into GB (our main market) as before and we’ve got a new distributor coming on board in Scotland in May. We’re lining up our first tap takeover of 2021 for Thursday 10th June in Birmingham, and we’ll be making an announcement soon on the return of our taproom here in Belfast.
Looking forward to getting out for some fresh pints in the pubs that have supported us over the years with the return of outdoor pubs here in NI this weekend. 🍺
Old brewery
New brewery
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Info:
We're optimistically looking ahead to a summer of taprooms and we need an army of staff to help us serve delicious fresh pints.
Taprooms are run on a pretty ad-hoc basis and are almost always at the weekend at our brewery here in south Belfast.
We're looking for people who are passionate about great beer, no experience necessary but you must be 18+.
How to Apply:
Send us an email to taproom@bullhousebeer.co.uk explaining why you want to work at the taproom and we'll get back to you to arrange informal interviews.
Salary:
We're proud to be a living wage employer so you will earn the hourly living wage.
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Did you know? Bullhouse beers are vegan!
As a brewery we are committing to producing fresh tasty beer which doesn’t contain any animal products or cost the earth.
Animal products in beer, surely not? Well yes it’s fairly common, and the two main offenders are:
Isinglass - a type of gelatin which is extracted from fish, which is mostly used by large scale (no pun intended) commercial breweries as a means of clarifying the beer.
Lactose (Milk Sugar) - a less fermentable sugar which is derived from milk, and is used as a means of adding body (mouthfeel) to a beer.
We never liked the idea of relying on these additives to improve our product. We’re in the game to impart maximum flavour using natural ingredients. We source the freshest hops for a reason. We don’t filter our beer and we have invested heavily in our tank farm to spund (reducing our CO2 use) as well as eliminating the need for tank to tank transfers (further reducing our environmental impact while retaining maximum flavour and aroma in our beer).
All our beers have ‘Vegan Friendly’ clearly written on the label to keep you right.
Peace and love
Team Bullhouse
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Hey!
With lockdown seemingly unending we decided it's time to give the people what they want for a change!
We are introducing new Mixed cases to the webstore. These will be available as either 12 or 24 packs and will contain a selection of our freshest brews removing the FOMO from beer ordering.
So what's in the box? Well, the contents will vary week on week and cases will be made up of a mix of core beers and specials - basically whatever beers we have in stock on the webshop. Importantly, we will never send out a beer of just core beers, they will always contain some fresh new specials.
EXCITING NEWS.....
Did someone say ‘Bullhouse Fresh Beer Subscription Service’?
Yup we did, just now. Mixed cases delivered monthly without having to lift a finger - class. We will be launching this next month as an option on our mixed cases to make life a little easier for you thirsty folks.
Thanks and stay safe
Team Bullhouse
]]>Hello friends,
We would like your help to come up with a new purpose for our empty grain bags.
The grain we use comes to us in plastic bags, which cannot be recycled in Ireland or GB at present. We have contacted our suppliers about this but they have no means of reusing/recycling and have pushed back on us to come up with a solution.
Our hope is that some of you lovely people could find a use for them - maybe in the garden or as rubble sacks, or maybe something altogether more creative.
Bags will go free to anyone who can provide a new home.
Thank you and be safe
Team Bullhouse
]]>Come Join the team
See here for Job Info
See here for Application Form
Closing Date - 15/01/21
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