M&S lists Northern Irish craft brewery

Mourne Mountains Craft Brewery has secured a deal to supply 18 Marks and Spencer (M&S) stores across Northern Ireland.

M&S is now stocking the brewery's Great Taste award winning beer, Red Trail, a red IPA, that's brewed in Warrenpoint, county Down, in the foothills of the Mourne Mountains.

Connaire McGreevy, the founder and managing director of the small brewery said: "We are thrilled to see our craft beer on the shelves in M&S, a premium supermarket known for its high standards.

"It's a milestone moment for us and just great recognition of the quality of the beer we're producing. We're so proud to be a local company, using local labour and local water from Spelga Dam. Just fresh, good quality beer that's made by hand in small batches.

"We're currently producing the equivalent of 250,000 bottles of beer per year to meet the demand for our core range which are sold in bars, restaurants and off licences across the country.

"We're quietly confident that sales at M&S will go well and we'll be able to leverage that profile to bring the brand to more outlets across NI and beyond," he adds.

Mourne Mountains Brewery was launched in 2015, producing a core range that includes Mourne Gold, a pale ale, Mourne Mist, a Pilsner, Red Trail, the red IPA, East Coast, an IPA and Big Rock, a German style wheat beer.

Red Trail red IPA won two stars at the Great Taste Awards 2016, the only beer from Northern Ireland to achieve that accolade in 2016. East Coast IPA won a silver medal at the 2016 Alltech Dublin Craft Beer Cup, the only NI beer to be recognised with an award that year.

Mr McGreevy adds: "We have exciting plans to launch several more seasonal specials this year that we think will go down a treat. The beauty of being a craft brewer is that you can be creative and agile, making a little of what you fancy each time and keeping things really fresh for the consumer. That's what I love most about what we do, craft beer, quite literally, never gets stale!"