Which Craft? An Investigation Into The Irish Craft Brewing Industry - Exploration And Co-operative Context

This study investigates and explores the Irish craft brewing industry with a specific focus on the attitudes, experiences and perceptions of Irish craft brewers to exportation and cooperation. This rapidly growing, niche sector could be considered a microcosm or subset of the Irish brewing industry and it is a valuable contributor of diversity, innovation, creativity, employment and revenue to the Irish economy as an indigenous industry. A quantitative and qualitative mixed methods approach was adopted to triangulate data from various sources. The research comprised of a survey questionnaire to Irish craft brewers, seven semi structured one-to-one interviews and one focus group interview with seven key stakeholders in the craft brewing sector. This study has found that there is a need to create the correct ethos for consumers to support local level enterprise, for craft brewers to forge lasting relationships with distributors and for Irish craft brewers to co-operate amongst themselves. The research reveals that unique opportunities are available to Irish craft beer producers for leveraging the Irish diaspora, ‘Brand Ireland’ and the Irish Pubs worldwide. The study has also found that collective exporting of craft beer products is an area of interest for many breweries. This research study proposes some topics that merit future research and will be of benefit to key stakeholders in the Irish craft brewing sector or to anyone with a genuine interest in the craft brewing landscape.