Gold for Kinnegar’s Scraggy Bay

Kinnegar’s Scraggy Bay IPA won a Gold at this year’s edition of the European Beer Star competition recently.

The enduring popularity of the Donegal brewery’s flagship IPA was mirrored by critical acclaim in this leading international competition.

A total of 2,168 beers from 40 countries competed for one of the awards at this year’s edition of the European Beer Star competition, organised by the Association of Private Breweries since 2004 and which has long become one of the most important beer competitions in the world..

Kinnegar Brewing was awarded Gold in the New Style IPA for its Scraggy Bay at the awards ceremony in Munich this month.

“Winning a medal at the European Beer Star not only ensures prestige in the international brewing industry,” says Rick LeVert, Managing Director and Head Brewer at Kinnegar, “It’s also important confirmation for all our Irish customers that they’re enjoying world-class beer.”

Anto Malone, proprietor of Walshes of Stoneybatter maintains, “All Kinnegar’s beers are consistently excellent and Scraggy on draught makes simple business sense. To be honest, as long as I have Guinness, Heineken and Scraggy Bay, I could just get rid of everything else.”

Kieran Brennan, Beer & Spirits Buyer at O’Briens, offered, “Scraggy is what I call a ‘stalwart’ beer — it’s one that O’Briens customers buy four or five of at a time, week-in week-out.

“It’s beers like this that allow O’Briens to do real volume and that’s absolutely critical in running a profitable off-licence.”

The European Beer Star is the second major international award claimed by Kinnegar in 2022 following its success with Black Bucket in the World Beer Cup in May.

“There aren’t many breweries in the world that achieve this level of recognition in a single year”, Wally Kearon of distributors Grand Cru Beers points out, “For a small independent brewery in Donegal to do it is quite remarkable testament to the quality of the Kinnegar product.”