Rick Le Vert

Archive - all the best places to eat, shop and stay in Ireland. A local guide to local places.

Rick LeVert expresses surprise at the demand for his Kinnegar Brewery beers.
He shouldn't be surprised.
For sure, it's somewhat surprising that a farmhouse brewery set way, way up north past Rathmullan village in farthest County Donegal, should have proved to be such a success in its first year of business that it had to add an extra 2 new fermenters after only a year in business.
But look closely at each element of the Kinnegar beers, and their success seems set in stone.
For a start, the bottles and their labels are gorgeous. But then, given the design background of Mr LeVert and his partner, Libby Carton, you expected that. You can get a quartet of Kinnegar bottles folded up in a cardboard sleeve, for example, and the design and aesthetic of the cardboard sleeve is an utter masterpiece. Details matter.
And the names of the beers! Rustbucket! Who could resist a Rustbucket! Or a Devil's Backbone.
Rustbucket, of course, is their dog (sadly no longer with us). And the Devil's Backbone isn't a Guillermo del Toro moment: it's a hill behind the farmhouse where the brewery works away busily.
What Mr LeVert has brought to the Kinnegar beers is a cosmopolitanism, much as you would expect of a guy from Boston who studied film in NYU, and who lived in Germany after the wall came down. But he has also brought a yen for for beers and the design to be “clean.” Clean flavours. Clean, crisp style. Clean appearance. Mr LeVert strips things back, all the better to get to the essence.

http://kinnegarbrewing.ie