Cork's Original 7 brewers celebrate their first anniversary with big plans for future
Three Beers! Shane Long, founder, Steve Guiney, managing director and Páidi Scully, head brewer at Original 7 beverage company based at the Franciscan Well brew pub on Cork's North Mall. Picture: Eddie O'Hare
A CORK microbrewery has celebrated its first official year in business, despite being on the go for longer than that.
The Original 7 Beverage Company, based in the microbrewery at the back of The Franciscan Well Brewpub, celebrated its first birthday in recent weeks.
Shane Long has been the owner of the microbrewery since 1998.
In 2022, Steve Guiney partnered up with Shane and head brewer, Páidí Scully, to launch Original 7 Beverage Co. in the microbrewery at the back of The Franciscan Well Brewpub.
Speaking to The Echo about the inspiration behind the business, Steve said it came from a “desire to brew quality beer”!
“We are all beer enthusiasts and wanted to produce beers that we could be proud of,” he said.
And brewing quality beers is exactly what the gang at Original 7 do.
“We now have five beers in our core range,” Steve explained.
“We have brewed some collaborations with our friends in Coughlan's Bar on Douglas St, a Spiced Ginger IPA for The Shelbourne Bar on MacCurtain St, a very successful collaboration with Lee Valley Brewing Club to brew a Mountain IPA in partnership with them and in July we will be releasing our New England IPA special for The Franciscan Well Brewpub, designed by the general manager, Michael Sheehan.
“Later this year we will release the first in a range of barrel-aged beers, an extra stout aged in ex-whiskey barrels for nine months - a collaboration with a world renowned Cork-based distiller,” he added.
It’s certainly a busy time for the team at Original 7. At present, the brewing co has three members of staff on the brewing team, and these are complemented by a range of other staff across various roles and positions.
“Páidí Scully is our head brewer and his assistants are Lucia Moreno Montero and Jim Molloy,” Steve explained.
“Our graphic design and marketing is managed by Fíanait O Donoghue.
“I take care of all business and financial matters as well as sales, customer support and branding.”
The beers from Original 7 can be found at 48 locations across Cork, and the lads have no intention of slowing down.
“In fact, our 48th location began pouring last week - The Crane Lane,” Steve added.
“You can find all outlets serving original 7 on our website - original7.ie.”
When asked what it felt like to be celebrating the company’s first official anniversary, Steve said:
“The business itself is actually nearly two years old as there was a long road to walk in acquiring our alcohol manufacturers licence and other setup hurdles but it was one year ago that our first pint was pulled in The Franciscan Well Brewpub.
“That was easily the highlight so far - drinking that first pint of beautiful, fresh, crisp Original 7 Lager!
“It feels great to be where we are one year on with all sales targets met and still growing!” Looking to the future of the business, Steve explained there are some exciting projects in the pipelines (literally) at Original 7.
“Well, we have our exciting barrel-aged series coming out in November which will be our first exposure to the off-trade market,” he said.
“We are actively working on a canning solution so we can bring our core range to the off-licence shelves.
“Our next hurdle is to add more brewing capacity,” he added.
“We are already in one outlet in Dublin - Bar 1661 - so we would like to have a bigger footprint there and spread across the country in time.”
For more, check out Original7.ie.
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