Elbow Lane get investment to expand brewery business

Expansion will allow it to increase production and meet demand

Elbow Lane' master brewer Russell Garrett said they were running out of product twice per year.

Cork’s Elbow Lane micro-brewery announced that it will double its brewing output due to recent match investment from Cork City’s Local Enterprise Office (LEO).

The small brewery on Oliver Plunkett Street in the city centre will receive an funding of €60,000 which will help the brewery develop its distribution within the region and keep up with demand.

“Given the growing demand for our beer, we were running out of product twice per year, especially as we condition each brew for four weeks. We are now in a position to be able to fulfil existing demand, develop new beers and start to expand slowly throughout the county,” said master brewer Russel Garrett.

“We will now have the capacity to bottle faster, brew larger volumes and age them for longer,” he added.

Elbow Lane Brewery is part of the Market Lane Group which also includes Elbow Lane Smokehouse, Market Lane, Goldie, ORSO and Blackrock Castle restaurants.

“It is great to be part of Cork’s buoyant brewing scene, and now we feel we can play a fuller role in spotlighting the quality of what we brew in the City,” said managing director Conrad Howard.

Elbow Lane is one of the few Irish breweries that applies to the principles of the ancient German Purity Law, “Reinheitsgebot”, which means that only four ingredients are used in the production of its beer. These ingredients are malted barley, hops, yeast and water.

“Because we don’t add enzymes or stabilizers to our beers have a shelf life of three months. This means that at the moment we have no ambition to sell our beer the length and breadth of the country. Instead, we would like to practice a German model of selling beer within 20/30 km of where it is brewed” said Mr Garrett.

Elbow Lane has just released an Anti-Imperial Stout called Resist in support of the war in Ukraine. This is now on sale with all profits donated to the International Red Cross. For a time, Resist will sit alongside the brewery’s core range of five beers which includes Elbow Lager, Angel Stout, Arrow Weisse, Wisdom Ale and Jawbone Pale Ale.