Micro brewer shooting for success with new wheat beer

Western movie hero John Wayne's family links with Northern Ireland are marked in a newly launched craft beer.

Wayne's Wheat, developed by the micro Hillstown Brewery in country Antrim, is a wheat beer (ABV 3.5%) that's now available in 330ml bottles. The pale beer, brewed from special yeast and rye blend developed by the microbrewery was launched earlier this month and is the outcome of work by brewers Jonathan Mitchell and Nigel Logan over the past two years.

The wheat beer is the first in a planned portfolio of three beers that will shortly include a Red Ale (ABV 5%), named after Harry Ferguson, the Northern Irish investor of the farm tractor, and 'Horny Bull' Stout (ABV 12%).

All three beers are being brewed in the craft brewery on the 100-acre Hillstown Farm, located in the Hillstown district, near Antrim town. Wayne's Wheat is now on sale in outlets in Northern Ireland.

Explaining the handcrafted wheat beer's name, Jonathan Mitchell says: "We were encouraged to name our first beer after John Wayne by a local historian. He produced research showing that the Morrisons, the actor's family, came from the area.

"The Morrisons were part of the Scotch Irish emigration to North America in the 18thcentury and eventually travelled west by wagon train to Iowa, where they settled at Winterset, the birthplace of Marion Morrison, in May 1907, later to make a movie career as John Wayne.

"We thought it was a great idea, a quirky identity that would set our first beer apart and might also appeal to tourists from the US. We are very proud of our Scotch-Irish heritage in Northern Ireland," he adds.

The beer has a heritage of its own. It's produced in a microbrewery from equipment created by the two, on the farm which the Logan family has been farming for five generations.

Today, they raise Aberdeen Angus and Irish Shorthorn beef cattle, as well as pigs and poultry. Stout has been used to feed the cattle for beef over the past few years. Beer-fed beef recently gained a Great Taste Award.

The enterprising duo also run Get'er Brewed, a specialist in home brew kits, a business established in April 2013 to provide advice, support, equipment and supplies for those wishing to produce beer, ciders and wines. The company is now the largest home brew supplier in Northern Ireland.