Food

Blacks know their market and after making beer, gin and rum, whiskey is next

Cork brand started out with some good IPAs but whiskey is driving distillery development

Sam and Maud Black of Blacks micro-brewery and distillery in Kinsale.

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John Wilson
Wed Sep 2 2020 - 06:00

Blacks started out life as a micro-brewery in Kinsale, Co Cork, producing a range of beers including a good IPA, one of the first session IPAs, simply called The Session, and the unusual, very tasty Black IPA. There is also a gluten-free lager in the range.

In 2015, they began distilling spirits and may be the only co-located brewery and distillery in the country. More recently they have collaborated with Ballymaloe House to produce Ballymaloe Garden Gin with herbs and botanicals from the walled garden, as well as releasing Blacks Spiced Irish Rum, the first and only 100 per cent Irish-made rum.

Sam Black and his partner Maud.

When I spoke to Sam Black, he and his partner Maud were just about to open their new brewery. “It is the first upgrade since we started and will more than double our capacity. The primary driver is actually the whiskey. We won’t release anything for five years, in 2025.

“We started out making gin and rum – we like rum, we love drinking it and making it; you age it in barrels like whiskey so you can do lots of different things with the oak. As far as I know there was no other rum made from start to finish in Ireland. We have built a good export market and have just won a gold medal in the 2020 World Rum Awards.”

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They aged the rum for four years in ex-Irish whiskey barrels, giving it a unique twist, and now they are ageing their new Irish whiskey in the same ex-rum barrels.

"The big thing at the moment is our founders' club. We are talking to investors interested in buying and laying down a cask of whiskey," Black says. There are all sorts of cask available, including more exotic choices such as ex-maple syrup, jackfruit or tequila. See blacksbrewery.com/founder.html for details.

As well as five core beers, Black’s release a new once-off beer every three weeks. “It’s challenging but it’s fun. When you are brewing Kinsale Pale Ale four days a week, it is nice to have something else to try out – a new yeast, a new hop, and it keeps consumers interested. If it works really really well we might incorporate it in our core range.”

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