Kinnegar Brewing in Rathmullan, Co Donegal, has invested €1 million in a new Letterkenny brewery which will allow it to brew three times its current production volume.
Founded in 2011 by Rick LeVert and Libby Carton, the brewery's annual production is around 400,000 litres and currently employs 9 staff, reports donegalnews.com. The new brewery will employ 10 to 15 people, with brewing to start within the next three weeks.
Kinnegar Brewing had received planning permission for a development at Rathmullan, but "unfortunately, we saw the subsequent appeal to An Bord Pleanála coming, so we were already looking at alternative locations. As a small business we couldn't afford to wait possibly 18 to 24 months for the appeals process so we had to abandon that project," said LeVert. He added that the two breweries will run "in parallel for a while, but at some point we'll have to make a decision."
Discussing the investment, LeVert commented: "At present, all our products are consumed in Ireland. We have relationships set up in France and Italy and they're basically waiting on the products out there, but the problem today is that we're unable to meet demand. We're looking at the export market and we're optimistic about the future."
