Duo back brewing what they really love in County Cork

IS it a comeback, a homecoming, or were they simply on a break, Friends-style, from the world of brewing?

Regardless, the original founders of Eight Degrees Brewing, Scott Baigent and Cam Wallace, have bought back and returned to the Mitchelstown brewery they left two years ago, ready to brew and still naturally adventurous.

Back in 2018, Irish Distillers had just completed the acquisition of Eight Degrees Brewing. It was the culmination of a partnership that we know as the Caskmates series, where Jameson Irish Whiskey was aged in barrels seasoned with Eight Degrees beer, and the brewery developed a range of beers seasoned in whiskey barrels. Sympatico.

So much so that Irish Distillers bought the brewery outright.

With Scott and Cam at the helm, they were left much to their own devices. Happy days for everyone.

But four years after the acquisition, it was getting harder to ignore the fact that the brewery they had built from scratch didn’t belong to them anymore; they were its managers, and that was starting to irk.

“When we sold to Irish Distillers, we were very excited and had high hopes for the brand, developing new products together, access to whiskey barrels and creating some really exciting beers – and that all happened,” says Cam, “but we probably weren’t great at having a boss!

“Towards the tail end of Covid, Scott and I started looking at other opportunities. 

We took an adventure centre out of liquidation and got stuck into that business.

"It can be tough when you’re used to being your own boss to be part of a corporation. We both needed that freedom to be able to explore our own separate opportunities,” says Scott.

It took a year away from the brewery to be able to look back fondly over what they had achieved.

“It’s a struggle running a brewery; it’s really hard work,” says Scott.

“There was a sadness in leaving,” he adds. “We were really proud of the brand we had created and the team we had developed, and it was hard to step away from that.

We weren’t skipping out the door with big smiles on our faces at the end of those four years; it was very much a bittersweet situation where we knew it was the right time to move on, but sadness to be leaving behind what we were proud of.

Behind the intention to leave and explore new opportunities was no blind hope that one day they might skip back through the doors of their beloved brewery.

But, says Cam, now they have done just that, and he can appreciate how someone can be tempted to emerge from retirement and take their dream out for another rodeo.

“We missed creating new ideas and concepts; even the buzz seeing people enjoy the beers,” says Cam.

“After you’ve been away a bit, you can look at the business through rose-tinted glasses. We knew Irish Distillers was looking to divest from Eight Degrees; the brewery was a bit of an anomaly in their portfolio.

So, we thought maybe we’d have a crack at getting it back and having another chapter.

A big part of the desire to get back to the brewery was the creative outlet it presented to Scott and Cam, who both come from technical backgrounds.

“It took the guts of a year before we started to forget about the struggles, challenges and the hard days, and instead remembering the parts we really enjoyed.

“A big part of it is just around the love of beer, a creative outlet where its like a canvas. Cam and I both really enjoyed what brewing could be for us and to express that creativity,” says Scott.

Scott and Cam approached Irish Distillers in November, 2023, and the week before Christmas the deal was done and the brewery was back in their hands.

“We were building our dream brewery, you know” says Cam. 

We were probably 70% of the way through building the brewery we had hoped to create, but by the time we did we didn’t own it anymore.

“There was a sense of a dream ultimately unfulfilled. This is a chance to go back; we’ve got a fantastic team, a world class brewery, and a great opportunity to let it shine.”

Eight Degrees was renowned for its spirited and playful approach to innovation, with short, limited edition runs of experimental brews.

The duo are already primed to release two brand new beers with which to mark their return.

“We’ve seen an opportunity to push on with that,” says Cam, and they both agree that playing with beer is the absolute best bit of having your own brewery!

“It creates that buzz around the brewery. The idea of being able to collaborate with other local producers, or come up with new ideas and products, and everybody has really good ideas,” says Cam.

“That’s the beauty of being in a small team again – we can be nimble, and some things might fail but that’s the whole point of being in a small business.

Having fun – that’s what a brewery should be all about, not taking yourself too seriously, either!

Within a week of the ink drying on the dotted line, Scott and the team already had two brand new beers brewed and in tank. They won’t tell me what they are right now, except that they’re really quite happy with the way they’re developing.

“We’re ratcheting up the innovation side of things straight away,” says Scott. “Eight Degrees Brewing was always known for its innovation, and we want to reclaim that title.

“There are pent-up concepts that myself, Cam and the brewers here have been wanting to bring through for a while

“From a consumer perspective, the main step change will be a really big increase in the number of new beers coming out from Eight Degrees Brewing.”

“Our main core beers like Howling Gale, Seisún and Full Irish are still an important part of what we’re producing, but limited-edition beers is the greatest tool we have to ask the consumer what they are interested in now,” Scott says.

“We also really see the low and no alcohol area as interesting and very under-served. There’s a pretty poor selection for consumers in pubs, so our medium-term plan for 2024 is to find products that can appeal to those people while bringing our values of full flavour and interesting tasting beers into that space.”

The core ethos of how Eight Degrees Brewing approaches beer is to be naturally adventurous and to use as many natural ingredients from local producers as possible. It’s all part of their vision to be a good part of the community.

The new beers will be ready to flow off the production lines into cans and kegs towards the end of February and March respectively. If the talk of great tasting beer and fun times is any indicator of what we’ll see, it’ll be the perfect herald of Scott and Cam’s return to the industry.

Over the coming months, Eight Degrees Brewing will pop up at food and beer festivals around the country, and there are hopes of a return to brewery open days and events as part of their drive to be as much a part of the community as possible.

“We will try to do some events in the brewery over the summer,” says Scott, “they were a great way to introduce both the local and beer communities to what we’re doing.”

“I do miss the events we used to do at the brewery,” says Cam. “The long table dinner and the open days to invite the community up to the brewery. It instils a bit of pride for the Mitchelstown community to have a brewery they can call theirs.

We’re at the foot of the Galtees and the Ballyhouras; our beers should be a celebration of exploring the great outdoors and being adventurous. That’s the spirit our beers need to portray.

“It’s fun to be back and hopefully there will be some tasty beers along the way!”

www.eightdegrees.ie