There’s a new brewery in Cork city... and things are about to get retro

ORIGINAL 7 Beverage Co is Cork city’s newest craft beer brand, but behind it is a wealth of experience.

Brewery Manager, Steve Guiney, has two decades of experience in Cork’s hospitality industry. Head Brewer, Páidi Scully, was in the team that established the original Franciscan Well brewery. Together they have teamed up with respected craft brewer and entrepreneur, Shane Long, to establish Original 7.

I caught up with Steve Guiney to find out more about the trio’s new venture, juggling a start up and children, and why we need to get nostalgic about the 1990s…

What is Original 7?

“Original 7, as a brand, is new but the brewery and the team behind it have been in the game for an awfully long time. Original 7 came about because the microbrewery at the back of The Franciscan Well Bar was no longer needed by the beer brand Franciscan Well and was just sitting there. So, Shane Long, owner of the brewery and the man who first started the Franciscan Well beer brand, and I teamed up to come up with a new beer.”

OK, so to be clear: the international beverage company, Molson Coors, bought the Franciscan Well beer brand in 2013. Shane Long remained the owner of The Franciscan Well Bar on The North Mall and owns the original microbrewery at the same location. Original 7 is a totally independent and new brand, even if it’s location, names and faces sound familiar.

“We called it Original 7 because when we looked at ways of tying our identity to our longevity, we really wanted to hone in that this brewery, when it was built, was one of the original seven microbreweries in Ireland. There are 75 now at the last count – more if counting much smaller breweries,” said Steve.

“The fact that it was one of the original seven gives it a lot of prestige, and with Shane’s reputation it really stamps our authority – we’re not just new boys, we are a new brand with old heads and experience.”

Yet Original 7 is a true start-up. While there are obvious operational ‘leg-ups; in terms of kit being there ready to use and reputational clout to leverage, Shane is in the background to advise where needed. Ultimately, this is a two-man juggling show: Steve is a full-time dad to his two children working part-time, while Páidi recently became a dad for the first time and works full time at the brewery.

Steve’s background in hospitality spans a 20-year career that began as a “regular bar man” in 2000 at the Imperial Hotel, to bar supervisor, deputy bar manager, bar manager and senior manager at Chambers and The Oliver Plunkett, part of Reardon’s Group, a stint in Australia, and Food and Beverage Manager at the Visitors’ Centre at the Jameson Distillery in Midleton.

An engineer by education, he credits the opportunities working in hospitality for getting a head for business and igniting his entrepreneurial flame. It was in 2014, while working at the Oliver Plunkett, that Steve met Shane.

“I bumped into him at an event both of us were involved in, got into conversation and from then on, we became really good friends. He always said he saw something in me, that I had the ability to be a businessperson, encouraging me to think like that, to come up with ideas, and come to him if I ever had anything,” said Steve.

In November, 2021, Steve finished up with Jameson to become a full-time dad while his wife returned full time to her business.

“I didn’t leave to open a business with Shane, but at the same time I knew that being at home with two kids and nothing else to do was never going to sit well with me. A few days after I handed in my notice, I had a pint with Shane and said, here’s what I’m doing, here’s what I can commit, my brain is open for ideas, but my time is largely with the kids.

“In my mind, I thought I might help in the Fran-Well or one of his other projects, but then he said he was getting the brewery back, it would be a shame if it just sat there, so would I want to open the brewery and release a new beer? I said that sounded absolutely amazing!”

So far, so serendipitous, but the craft beer marketplace is a crowded one; so why open a new brewery now?

“The market is absolutely saturated for beer right now – really good beers and amazing brands,” says Steve, “there’s only so many taps each pub can have, so many cans off-licences will take in. It is a very competitive market, but the brewery was sitting there which meant we were able to do this with very little capital expenditure. That made the decision a lot easier.”

Original 7 launched with three core beers: Hazy Pale Ale, Lager and Weiss. More styles will roll off the production line over time, but why these styles, and how, in a saturated market, have they made beers that stand out?

“The customer is looking for something lighter, known as sessionable beers; lighter ABV, easier to drink but still unmistakably artisan with big flavours driven through the hopping process,” Steve explained.

“The Hazy is our hero beer; we chose it because Pale Ale is the new IPA. People’s drinking habits are changing slightly, in the sense that IPAs are a little heavier for people who want more than a couple of pints a night but still want something crafty.

“We really focused on big punchy flavours for the Hazy, tropical flavours, and it’s only going to get tastier as we work through perfecting it.

“Lager is not easy to make, it takes twice as long to brew as other beers, but we’ve got a very experienced brewer in Páidi, and Shane retained a great recipe from the days when he was brewing. We had to have a lager; to be proud to have our own. It’s the one recipe we haven’t tinkered with at all since we put it in the kettle and what we come out with is an absolutely stunning lager! Our Weiss beer is a historical one – it’s Shane’s recipe, an old recipe that used to be very popular prior to 2014 when it changed due to supply chain issues. But, because we’re brewing in much smaller capacity, we can get around that. So, we brought back the original yeast and the original recipe and there’s a lot of people happy that it’s coming back as the original recipe. It’s already selling very well at Fran-Well, outstripping sales of our Hazy Pale Ale!”

Original 7 is all about bringing back a bit of nostalgia for the late ’90s – the era of tie-dye, playing Snake on a Nokia, and mixtapes on cassette. I don’t think I’m personally ready to consider the ’90s retro, but I’m all for a bit of nostalgia, and it links Original 7 to 1998 when Shane Long set up the original microbrewery at The Franciscan Well Bar.

“Typically. craft beer drinkers are people that grew up in the ’90s. I remember 1998 as a sunny, fun summer. I curated a 1998 playlist for the website, and the music that summer was phenomenal! 

"Anyone who grew up in that late ’90s era of pre 9/11, happy-go-lucky times, when Ireland was getting prosperous, and everything was looking up – it was like our summer of possibility. We wanted to reconnect to that, those good memories from that time, and bring people back there.

“No-one was as concerned about world events back then; I suppose we weren’t as exposed to it as we are today. The internet was in its infancy, no social media, no bickering online - things were just... lovelier.”

Original 7 beer is available on tap at 19 locations around the city right now, rising to 40 by the end of September, with a nationwide roll out after that. By the end of the year, Original 7 will be available in cans from off-licences.

Despite the busy marketplace, the passion for the art of brewing great tasting beers and tapping into a customer base craving for more nostalgic times, Original 7 is proving that there is plenty of room for creativity and innovation and to have fun with it.

Keep an eye out for new locations pouring Original 7 on their social channels, because, says Steve, the best way to tell you how good their beers are is to come down and taste them.

You can keep up to date with Original 7, and to access that amazing 1998 playlist, visit www.original7.ie or on Instagram @original_7_beverage_co