Smithwick's descendant says brewing to return to Kilkenny in 2023

Dan Smithwick’s surname is deeply intertwined with Kilkenny city - the Smithwicks are synonymous with the City's famous brewery which was an integral part of Kilkenny life from 1710 until it closed as a commercial enterprise in 2013. 

So for Dan, his announcement that his company Sullivan’s Brewing is to bring brewing back to the very heart of Kilkenny City is not only the culmination of a professional ambition, it is also a personal milestone. He says it is ‘so exciting to bring this news to people’  and that he is ‘chest-thumpingly proud’ of the new brewery.  

Dan revived the Sullivan's brand in 2016 with his cousin Alan Smithwick, acutely aware of the ‘nostalgia for brewing in Kilkenny City’. For him it has been nothing short of a ‘life mission’ to see brewing return to its home of so many centuries. Monks were actually the first Kilkenny brewers in the 1300s but were forced to cease with the advent of Henry VIII's Reformation in 1537. 

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Then in the early 1700s, John Smithwick opened his famous Smithwick's brewery which thrived for over two centuries. Sullivan’s Brewing Company meanwhile opened for business over three hundred years ago in The Maltings on James’s Street, smack bang in the middle of Kilkenny City. 

For Dan and his relations, especially his recently deceased Dad Paul, when the  Smithwick's brewery shut production and left Kilkenny entirely, it ‘left a gaping hole in the DNA of the city’. His new brewery will now fill that gap, albeit on a smaller footprint than the old Smithwick’s site. 

The project has been a long time in preparation and planning and was delayed due to COVID, but it ‘s now all systems go for the ultra modern brewery which will sit on the site of the old garden centre on John Street. Planning permission was received last November and an exhaustive search for a company to supply the brewery technology led to  ZipTech in Hungary who manufacture high-spec systems designed to brew beverages of uncompromising quality. 

The brewery system will be delivered in April/ May 2023 and then Brian Dunlop Architects and Prochem Engineering (both Kilkenny firms) will build the hard structure around this. The building will have a striking contemporary design and a glass front so the entire brewing process will be visible to clients. 

The plan is to brew domestic draft beer in kegs with proposed production yields of 7,500 hectolitres the ultimate goal. Sullivan's will be looking for both local and regional support and have already had encouraging messages from local publicans who are delighted to see the tradition of Kilkenny brewing revived. 

Sullivan’s brewer Ian Hamilton has over 40 years of experience and will be assisted by other qualified brewers on site. With the Carlow campus of SETU offering a BSC in Brewing and Distilling, Dan says, there ‘no shortage of quality brewers’ in the region. 

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Sullivan's remains export focused, they are currently in 26 states in the US and will be available nationwide stateside by the end of 2023. Post COVID, Dan saya that people have ‘more adventurous palates’ and that the pandemic 'encouraged more premium products’. 

The craftsmanship and history of the brand are now being fused with a modern ethos. The advanced brewing systems from ZipTech will feature traditional copper material but also ‘best in class’  technology. It is as Dan says, a perfect blend of’ old and new’ that is  ‘designed to brew beautiful well-balanced beer’. The entire system is fully automated, environmentally friendly, and high yielding too. 

As a nod to his family legacy, Dan is hoping that his Aunt Judy (the last surviving member of his father’s siblings) will cut the ribbon on the new brewery in the summer of 2023. Not surprisingly, he says she and the rest of the Smithwick clan are ‘desperately proud’ that he is bringing brewing back home to the very heart of Kilkenny City.