The Porterhouse Brewing Company is a

brewing company A brewery or brewing company is a business that makes and sells beer. The place at which beer is commercially made is either called a brewery or a beerhouse, where distinct sets of brewing equipment are called plant. The commercial brewing of b ...

based in Dublin, Ireland. It was founded in 1996 by cousins Oliver Hughes and Liam Lahart who opened Ireland's first craft brew pub in Dublin. The company's brewery is now in

Glasnevin Glasnevin (, also known as ''Glas Naedhe'', meaning "stream of O'Naeidhe" after a local stream and an ancient chieftain) is a neighbourhood of Dublin, Ireland, situated on the River Tolka. While primarily residential, Glasnevin is also home to ...

, providing beers to its outlets in Dublin, London and New York. It also sells its products via several supermarket chains. It was reported, in 2023, that

Conor McGregor Conor Anthony McGregor (born 14 July 1988) is an Irish professional mixed martial arts, mixed martial artist. He is a former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) UFC Featherweight Championship, Featherweight and UFC Lightweight Championship, Li ...

had "agreed to buy the Porterhouse Brewery".

History

While there were over two hundred breweries in Ireland during the 19th century, by the twentieth century the market was largely served by a few large breweries. It was in this environment that, in 1989, Liam Lahart and Oliver Hughes bought a run-down building in Bray, County Wicklow, which became the company's first pub. In 1996, the Porterhouse

brewpub Craft beer is beer manufactured by craft breweries, which typically produce smaller amounts of beer than larger "macro" breweries and are often independently owned. Such breweries are generally perceived and marketed as emphasising enthusiasm, ne ...

was opened in Dublin's Temple Bar area. They opened their next bar in

Covent Garden Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist sit ...

London in 2000. They opened Porterhouse North in

, Dublin in 2004, and the group purchased another property in Dublin city centre in 2004. In January 2011, they opened a premises on Pearl Street in

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

, New York, trading at

Fraunces Tavern Fraunces Tavern is a museum and restaurant in New York City, situated at 54 Pearl Street at the corner of Broad Street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan. The location played a prominent role in history before, during, and after th ...

. The original bar in

Bray Bray may refer to: Places France * Bray, Eure, in the Eure ''département'' * Bray, Saône-et-Loire, in the Saône-et-Loire ''département'' * Bray-Dunes, in the Nord ''département'' * Bray-en-Val, in the Loiret ''département'' * Bray-et-Lû ...

, was sold in February 2019. As of 2021, the company reportedly had between 280 and 300 employees, declining to 180 by early 2022. As of late 2022, the company's website listed four bars: two in Dublin (in Temple Bar and Nassau Street), one in London and one in New York. In April 2023, a report in the ''

Irish Independent The ''Irish Independent'' is an Irish daily newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray backgrou ...

'' indicated that Irish MMA star

had "agreed to buy the Porterhouse Brewery in Dublin".

Beers

The Porterhouse Brewery's beers, mainly draught beers which are

filtered Filtration is a physical separation process that separates solid matter and fluid from a mixture using a ''filter medium'' that has a complex structure through which only the fluid can pass. Solid particles that cannot pass through the filter ...

and kegged, include: * Wrasslers 4X

Stout Stout is a type of dark beer that is generally warm fermented, such as dry stout, oatmeal stout, milk stout and imperial stout. Stout is a type of ale. The first known use of the word "stout" for beer is in a document dated 1677 in the E ...

, a 5.7%

abv Alcohol by volume (abbreviated as alc/vol or ABV) is a common measure of the amount of alcohol contained in a given alcoholic beverage. It is defined as the volume the ethanol in the liquid would take if separated from the rest of the solution, ...

stout Stout is a type of dark beer that is generally warm fermented, such as dry stout, oatmeal stout, milk stout and imperial stout. Stout is a type of ale. The first known use of the word "stout" for beer is in a document dated 1677 in the E ...

claimed to be made to a recipe originally brewed by Deasy's of West Cork in the early 1900s; * Oyster Stout, 5.2% abv; * Plain

Porter Porter may refer to: Companies * Porter Airlines, Canadian airline based in Toronto * Porter Chemical Company, a defunct U.S. toy manufacturer of chemistry sets * Porter Motor Company, defunct U.S. car manufacturer * H.K. Porter, Inc., a locom ...

, 5% abv; Winner of the gold medal at the Brewing Industry International Awards for the best stout in the world in 1998 and again in 2011; * Turner's Sticklebract Bitter (TSB), a 3.7% abv

session bitter Bitter is an English style of pale ale that varies in colour from gold to dark amber, and in strength typically from 3% to 5.5% alcohol by volume. History The term "bitter" has been used in England to describe pale ale since the early 19th cent ...

first brewed in July 2000 to celebrate the opening of The Porterhouse in Covent Garden, London; * Porterhouse Red, a 4.4% abv

Irish red ale Irish red ale (), also known as red ale or Irish ale, is a style of pale ale that is brewed using a moderate amount of kilned malts and roasted barley, giving the beer its red colour. Its strength typically ranges from 3.8% to 4.8% alcohol by vo ...

; * An Brain Blasta, a 7% abv

strong ale Strong ale is a type of ale, usually above 5% abv and often higher, between 7 and 11% abv, which spans a number of beer styles, including old ale, barley wine, and Burton ale. Strong ales are brewed throughout Europe and beyond, including in ...

; * Hersbrucker, a 5% abv

pale lager Pale lager is a pale-to- golden lager beer with a well- attenuated body and a varying degree of noble hop bitterness. In the mid-19th century, Gabriel Sedlmayr took British pale ale brewing and malt making techniques back to the Spaten Bre ...

; * Temple Bräu, a 4.3% abv pale lager; * Chiller, a 4.2% abv pale lager; * Hop Head, a 5% abv

pale ale Pale ale is a golden to amber coloured beer style brewed with pale malt. The term first appeared in England around 1703 for beers made from malts dried with high-carbon coke, which resulted in a lighter colour than other beers popular at th ...

. In 2009, the brewery launched a range of bottled versions of its beers. During the 2020 COVID-19 "lockdown" in Ireland, they released an IPA called "Stay Home Isolation IPA".

Pubs

In order of opening date, pubs operated by the group have included: * The Porterhouse Inn, Strand Road,

County Wicklow County Wicklow ( ; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The last of the traditional 32 counties, having been formed as late as 1606 in Ireland, 1606, it is part of the Eastern and Midland Region and the Provinces ...

(1989); The original Porterhouse, which opened in 1989, was sold in February 2019. * The Porterhouse, Parliament Street, Temple Bar, Dublin (opened 1996) * The Porterhouse,

, London (opened 2000) * The Porterhouse North, Cross Guns Bridge,

(2004; rebranded in 2016 as "The Whitworth", and subsequently sold) * The Porterhouse Central, Nassau Street, Dublin (acquired 2004; rebranded in 2022 as "Tapped") * The Porterhouse at Fraunces Tavern, Pearl Street, New York (2011) The group's brewery is located in the

area of Dublin.

Other businesses

Other businesses, operated by the Porterhouse Group, include a chain of tapas bars which, as of 2021, had four locations in the Dublin area (South William Street, Temple Bar, Camden Street and Dundrum) and one in London. It also owned the

Lillie's Bordello Lillie's Bordello was a nightclub in Dublin, Ireland that operated between 1991 and 2019. As a high-end establishment, it was symbolic of the culture of the Celtic Tiger era (c. 1994–2007). History Lillie's opened in 1991 in the building, 1- ...

nightclub. In 2011, Porterhouse announced a desire to build a distillery in

Dingle Dingle ( or ''Daingean Uí Chúis'', meaning "fort of Ó Cúis") is a town in County Kerry in the south-west of Ireland. The only town on the Dingle Peninsula (known in Irish as ''Corca Dhuibhne''), it sits on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coa ...

County Kerry County Kerry () is a Counties of Ireland, county on the southwest coast of Republic of Ireland, Ireland, within the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster and the Southern Region, Ireland, Southern Region. It is bordered by two other countie ...

. The distillery opened in 2012 trading as

Dingle Distillery Dingle Distillery is an Irish whiskey distillery established in 2012 and owned by the Porterhouse Brewing Company. The distillery is located in a converted sawmill in Milltown on the outskirts of Dingle in County Kerry in Ireland. The first w ...

, part of the Porterhouse Group.

References

External links

* {{official website, https://porterhousebrewco.ie/ Breweries in Ireland Food and drink companies established in 1989 Food and drink companies based in Dublin (city) Manufacturing companies based in Dublin (city) Beer in Ireland Pub chains Pubs in England Pubs in Ireland Pubs in Dublin (city) 1989 establishments in Ireland 1996 establishments in Ireland