9 White Deer Brewery launch a beer for language
Gaeltacht Mhúscraí, March 14, 2018 9 White Deer Brewery in the Múscraí Gaeltacht village of Baile Bhuirne have launched a beer to celebrate our native language.
The official launch will be Sat March 17th at The Mills Inn, Ballyvourney, Co Cork. What’s unusual is the bottle label and branding is all in Irish except the ingredients where both Irish and English are used. The Beer called “ól-é” meaning “drink it” is a creation to get people to think a bit more about our language.
The brewery now in its 4th year has an existing range of 9 beers with ól-é making it 10 and as you’d expect for 9 White Deer this one also happens to be gluten free. Ól-é is a pilsner, a type of lager developed in Germany around the 1840’s, it has since become one of the most popular styles the world over. Ireland is no exception where lager makes up over 60% of beer sold. (2016 figures from ABFI).
Craft breweries don’t usually dedicate much valuable tank space to lagers because it needs time to lager and mature, high tech equipment is out of reach to enable short cuts when producing lager so it has to be done traditionally which takes six to eight weeks to make. When you taste Ól-é it’s clear to see that tradition dictates.
The brewers Gordon Lucey and Don O’Leary are passionate about our Irish language and would wish to see more use of it “even though about half of us in the brewery are fluent Irish is encouraged” said O Leary. 2018 hold some important Irish language events, not only Seachtain na Gaeilge running March 1-17th but Bliain na Gaeilge 2018 is a big push to further revive the language. Lucey quotes “There are so many ways to engage in Irish and some great resources like Duolingo, www.focloir.ie and www.tearma.ie” For more information on the beer and it’s availability keep an eye on www.9whitedeer.ie or follow them on twitter and facebook
To that we say “Ól-é Ól-é Ól-é”.
