Cork's Elbow Lane Brewery will double its brewing capacity after receiving match-funding from Cork city's Local Enterprise Office, helping the company to keep up with existing demand and help develop its distribution within the region.

An investment of €60,000 will be poured into micro-brewery's site on Oliver Plunkett Street in the city centre, with master brewer Russell Garrett saying the brewery will be able to develop new products and expand nationwide.

"We are delighted that the Local Enterprise Office has assisted us in the expansion of the Brewery," Garrett said. “We will now have the capacity to bottle faster, brew larger volumes and age them for longer.

"Given the growing demand for our beer, we were running out of product twice per year, especially as we condition each brew for four weeks. We are now in a position to be able to fulfill existing demand, develop new beers and start to expand slowly throughout the county."

Encouraging business growth within the city centre is what we are all about as a group" said Conrad Howard, managing director of the Market Lane Group, which owns Elbow Lane Brewery, Elbow Lane Smokehouse, and the Market Lane, Goldie, ORSO and Blackrock Castle restaurants.

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“It is great to be part of Cork’s buoyant brewing scene, and now we feel we can play a fuller role in spotlighting the quality of what we brew in the city.”

At present Elbow Lane beers are available through the Market Lane Group of restaurants as well as Off-Licenses such as Bradley’s, the NeighbourFood Market and a limited number of pubs and restaurants in the county.

The company strictly adheres to German purity laws, which dictate that only four ingredients can be used in the brewing of beer: malted barley, hops, yeast and water. There are no additives in Elbow Lane beer, and the fermentation of the beer is not artificially accelerated nor filtered.

“Because we don’t add enzymes or stabilisers to our beers they have a shelf life of three months," Garrett said. "This means that at the moment we have no ambition to sell our beer the length and breadth of the country.   Instead, we would like to practice a German model of selling beer within 20/30 km of where it is brewed."

Elbow Lane recently released an Anti-Imperial Stout called Resist in support of Ukraine, with all profits being donated to the Red Cross, and the brewery has a core range of five beers, including Elbow Lager, Angel Stout, Arrow Weisse, Wisdom Ale and Jawbone Pale Ale.

Photo: Russell Garrett, master brewer at Elbow Lane Brewery.