Kids these days. Sure, we’ve all said it. What is up with these younger generations? Generation Zs and Generation Alphas are very different from the Millennial, Generation X and Baby Boomer generations who came before them.
These kids were born with a seemingly innate understanding of how technology works, but it’s not just tech which sets them apart from the rest of us – they are also eating differently.
For example, Generation Z (anyone born roughly between 1997 and 2012) seems much more focused on health and wellbeing than the rest of us – but are they really? Mintel research from 2022 (as shared by Bord Bia) indicates that the majority of Gen Z-ers aim to eat healthfully, but also snack more frequently than older generations and are more attracted to convenience foods.
As more Generation Z-ers reach the legal age, it is increasingly apparent that they drink differently, too.
A recent report commissioned by the Drinks Industry Group of Ireland (DIGI) shows that, year on year, alcohol consumption in Ireland is consistently falling with an overall decline in consumption of 34.3% since 2001.
The report, entitled “Estimate of Irish Alcohol Consumption per Adult in 2024 with some International Comparisons for 2022” shows that alcohol consumption decreased by a further 2.4% in 2024 when compared to 2023 figures.
This newer research aligns with the Drinks Ireland #mywaymyday campaign, which was launched in 2022 and stems from research they commissioned to explore the relationship between younger generations and alcohol.
It’s no secret that younger generations are taking a more mindful approach to alcohol, but does that mean they have shunned it altogether? Not necessarily. While traditional beer and wine might not be hitting the right notes, Gen Z still enjoy their drinks; they are just drinking differently – and the sector is listening.
Kinnegar Brewing
Kinnegar Brewing is an independent beer company based in Co Donegal. Founded in 2011 by Libby Carton and Rick LeVert, you can find their core line of art-laden bottles and cans at most off-licences, and at supermarkets like Lidl and Tesco. You can also visit the tasting room at their brewery in Letterkenny.
Rick and Libby have always aimed to provide consistently good, sessionable beers to the Irish public. To them, providing this means listening to the consumer and understanding where trends in drinking habits might be headed.
Limeburner Kinnegar Brewing.
“We can see the market has changed dramatically since we were cutting our teeth in 2011,” Rick tells Irish Country Living. “As far as products and flavours go, the entire sector has changed significantly over the past four to five years. There’s a big generational shift [in drinking habits], and it’s also important that smaller breweries like ourselves continue to develop new products.”
With this in mind, Kinnegar recently launched their new Jackrabbit Ginger Beer. This drink is a nod to Kinnegar’s beer-brewing roots, but offers a relatively low ABV (alcohol by volume) of 4% and a refreshing balance of sweetness, malt and spice. “For us, it was looking for a way to combine our background with some new flavour profiles and bringing the alcohol content down a bit,” Rick says. “We need to make sure we speak to new audiences. Maybe, in a few years’ time, that audience will discover our Scraggy Bay IPA, which currently represents about 30% of our production. The question is: will the younger audience find their way to traditional beer?”
Like most in the sector, Rick and Libby aren’t sure if this decline in consumption is a long-term trend or just a blip on the screen. Rick points out that just because younger consumers aren’t hitting the pub in their droves doesn’t mean this is the way things will be forever.
“We’ve seen plenty of 25-year-olds drinking our beer,” he says.
“We focus on core beers that are highly drinkable and accessible to everyone. Some independent beers aim to challenge people [with high ABV and bold, hoppy flavours], but we would rather ensure ours are as enjoyable and high quality as possible.”
For the future, Kinnegar will continue to adapt to the market while staying true to their beer-brewing roots. Now employing 19 people and exporting their beer to Italy, France and Holland, Rick and Libby feel a sense of responsibility to their community and the team, but they are confident about their reach outside of Ireland, too.
“I don’t think we ever felt any fear about not being able to make a living. This made us feel like we weren’t taking such a risk [in the beginning],” Libby says. “We are reasonably modest creatures and [in a sense] we’ve been able to afford to fail.
“That’s been critical – we’re cautiously confident.”
Kinsale Mead Co.
For traditional brewers it might be time to think outside the box, but some in the Irish spirit and brewing sector have been outside the box since the beginning. These businesses now find themselves ‘on trend’ with younger audiences.
“It all started on a trip to the Hill of Tara,” says Kate Dempsey, who co-founded Kinsale Mead Co. in 2017 with her husband, Denis. “We realised we were standing on the footprint of the Great Mead Hall. We looked at each other and went, ‘this has been done before.’”
Mead is believed to be the oldest alcoholic drink in the world, with a history going as far back at 6000BC. It is made from fermenting honey and water, sometimes with the addition of fruit. When Kate and Denis founded their meadery in Kinsale, Co Cork, it hadn’t been made in Ireland for approximately 200 years.
Kate and Denis Demspey founded Kinsale Mead Co. in 2017.
“We knew it was woven through Irish history,” Kate says. “And we knew there was no real mead being made in Ireland, which was crazy because it is such a beautiful drink. That’s really how it all started – we moved to Kinsale and started making test batches.”
While perfecting their recipe, Kate and Denis tested out several honeys to find the right flavour. They also experimented with a few types of wine yeast, because the yeast can also affect the flavour of the final product.
“A lot of people assume that mead is automatically sweet, but there is actually a huge spectrum of sweetness levels available,” Kate explains. “Most of our meads are off-dry, because we want them to be enjoyed with food. You can also have higher levels of alcohol – you could do a beer-strength mead, or a wine strength. Ours are mainly around 11-12% ABV.”
The mead-making process is similar to that of making wine. For a pure honey mead, Kate and Denis use one part honey to two parts warm water. Then, wine yeast is added and the mixture is left to ferment for up to 12 weeks, depending on the temperature in the meadery.
For fruit mead, frozen berries are combined with the honey and warm water mixture. Fruit meads ferment much more quickly, in just five or six days. Once fermented, the meads are matured for up to two years.
“We currently have 10 different meads available for purchase online, which is the largest number we have ever had,” Kate says. “As a business, we are growing every year. What happens is, people try the mead and then they tell their friends about it.”
When it comes to drinking trends in younger generations, Kinsale Mead Co. ticks plenty of boxes – they are a local company using a traditional method of brewing. Their product line is meant to be savoured – it is not something you might binge on at the pub on a Saturday night. Mead is also a great spirit for a summery cocktail.
Kate says both chefs and bartenders have championed their product line in creative and thoughtful ways.
Kinsale Mead Co's Hazy Summer Mead makes a great cocktail, which appeals to many younger drinkers.
“We’ve experienced some amazing food pairings from Irish chefs, which is always so great to see,” Kate says. “Our Atlantic Dry Mead is often paired with things like fish in a fennel and mead sauce, and we’ve seen it used to poach plums with cardamom and with blue cheese.”
This summer, Kinsale Mead Co. are promoting their Hazy Summer Mead which pairs well with barbecued foods or salads with zingy raspberry vinaigrettes.
“The Hazy Summer Mead offers strawberries and raspberries on the nose,” Kate says. “Then flavours of blackberries, blackcurrant and cherries come through, followed by blueberries on the finish. You also get a bit more of the honey, because this is a younger mead compared to our others [matured for approximately six months].”
Of the 10 meads currently available for online purchase, Kinsale Mead Co. offer three year-round products – their Atlantic Dry Mead, Hazy Summer Mead and Wild Red Mead – which can be found in SuperValu off-licences, The Celtic Whiskey Shop and O’Brien’s Wines, among other stockists.
Kate and Denis currently have five full-time employees and other part-time employees. They offer tours and tastings in their meadery, which has apparently become quite the local attraction.
“We’re the number one thing to do in Kinsale when it’s raining,” Kate says with a laugh.
See kinnegarbrewing.ie and kinsalemeadco.ie
Read more
A new flavour of farming with Two Green Shoots
Taste Tradition: from shelf to stove - recipes with a history
Kids these days. Sure, we’ve all said it. What is up with these younger generations? Generation Zs and Generation Alphas are very different from the Millennial, Generation X and Baby Boomer generations who came before them.
These kids were born with a seemingly innate understanding of how technology works, but it’s not just tech which sets them apart from the rest of us – they are also eating differently.
For example, Generation Z (anyone born roughly between 1997 and 2012) seems much more focused on health and wellbeing than the rest of us – but are they really? Mintel research from 2022 (as shared by Bord Bia) indicates that the majority of Gen Z-ers aim to eat healthfully, but also snack more frequently than older generations and are more attracted to convenience foods.
As more Generation Z-ers reach the legal age, it is increasingly apparent that they drink differently, too.
A recent report commissioned by the Drinks Industry Group of Ireland (DIGI) shows that, year on year, alcohol consumption in Ireland is consistently falling with an overall decline in consumption of 34.3% since 2001.
The report, entitled “Estimate of Irish Alcohol Consumption per Adult in 2024 with some International Comparisons for 2022” shows that alcohol consumption decreased by a further 2.4% in 2024 when compared to 2023 figures.
This newer research aligns with the Drinks Ireland #mywaymyday campaign, which was launched in 2022 and stems from research they commissioned to explore the relationship between younger generations and alcohol.
It’s no secret that younger generations are taking a more mindful approach to alcohol, but does that mean they have shunned it altogether? Not necessarily. While traditional beer and wine might not be hitting the right notes, Gen Z still enjoy their drinks; they are just drinking differently – and the sector is listening.
Kinnegar Brewing
Kinnegar Brewing is an independent beer company based in Co Donegal. Founded in 2011 by Libby Carton and Rick LeVert, you can find their core line of art-laden bottles and cans at most off-licences, and at supermarkets like Lidl and Tesco. You can also visit the tasting room at their brewery in Letterkenny.
Rick and Libby have always aimed to provide consistently good, sessionable beers to the Irish public. To them, providing this means listening to the consumer and understanding where trends in drinking habits might be headed.
Limeburner Kinnegar Brewing.
“We can see the market has changed dramatically since we were cutting our teeth in 2011,” Rick tells Irish Country Living. “As far as products and flavours go, the entire sector has changed significantly over the past four to five years. There’s a big generational shift [in drinking habits], and it’s also important that smaller breweries like ourselves continue to develop new products.”
With this in mind, Kinnegar recently launched their new Jackrabbit Ginger Beer. This drink is a nod to Kinnegar’s beer-brewing roots, but offers a relatively low ABV (alcohol by volume) of 4% and a refreshing balance of sweetness, malt and spice. “For us, it was looking for a way to combine our background with some new flavour profiles and bringing the alcohol content down a bit,” Rick says. “We need to make sure we speak to new audiences. Maybe, in a few years’ time, that audience will discover our Scraggy Bay IPA, which currently represents about 30% of our production. The question is: will the younger audience find their way to traditional beer?”
Like most in the sector, Rick and Libby aren’t sure if this decline in consumption is a long-term trend or just a blip on the screen. Rick points out that just because younger consumers aren’t hitting the pub in their droves doesn’t mean this is the way things will be forever.
“We’ve seen plenty of 25-year-olds drinking our beer,” he says.
“We focus on core beers that are highly drinkable and accessible to everyone. Some independent beers aim to challenge people [with high ABV and bold, hoppy flavours], but we would rather ensure ours are as enjoyable and high quality as possible.”
For the future, Kinnegar will continue to adapt to the market while staying true to their beer-brewing roots. Now employing 19 people and exporting their beer to Italy, France and Holland, Rick and Libby feel a sense of responsibility to their community and the team, but they are confident about their reach outside of Ireland, too.
“I don’t think we ever felt any fear about not being able to make a living. This made us feel like we weren’t taking such a risk [in the beginning],” Libby says. “We are reasonably modest creatures and [in a sense] we’ve been able to afford to fail.
“That’s been critical – we’re cautiously confident.”
Kinsale Mead Co.
For traditional brewers it might be time to think outside the box, but some in the Irish spirit and brewing sector have been outside the box since the beginning. These businesses now find themselves ‘on trend’ with younger audiences.
“It all started on a trip to the Hill of Tara,” says Kate Dempsey, who co-founded Kinsale Mead Co. in 2017 with her husband, Denis. “We realised we were standing on the footprint of the Great Mead Hall. We looked at each other and went, ‘this has been done before.’”
Mead is believed to be the oldest alcoholic drink in the world, with a history going as far back at 6000BC. It is made from fermenting honey and water, sometimes with the addition of fruit. When Kate and Denis founded their meadery in Kinsale, Co Cork, it hadn’t been made in Ireland for approximately 200 years.
Kate and Denis Demspey founded Kinsale Mead Co. in 2017.
“We knew it was woven through Irish history,” Kate says. “And we knew there was no real mead being made in Ireland, which was crazy because it is such a beautiful drink. That’s really how it all started – we moved to Kinsale and started making test batches.”
While perfecting their recipe, Kate and Denis tested out several honeys to find the right flavour. They also experimented with a few types of wine yeast, because the yeast can also affect the flavour of the final product.
“A lot of people assume that mead is automatically sweet, but there is actually a huge spectrum of sweetness levels available,” Kate explains. “Most of our meads are off-dry, because we want them to be enjoyed with food. You can also have higher levels of alcohol – you could do a beer-strength mead, or a wine strength. Ours are mainly around 11-12% ABV.”
The mead-making process is similar to that of making wine. For a pure honey mead, Kate and Denis use one part honey to two parts warm water. Then, wine yeast is added and the mixture is left to ferment for up to 12 weeks, depending on the temperature in the meadery.
For fruit mead, frozen berries are combined with the honey and warm water mixture. Fruit meads ferment much more quickly, in just five or six days. Once fermented, the meads are matured for up to two years.
“We currently have 10 different meads available for purchase online, which is the largest number we have ever had,” Kate says. “As a business, we are growing every year. What happens is, people try the mead and then they tell their friends about it.”
When it comes to drinking trends in younger generations, Kinsale Mead Co. ticks plenty of boxes – they are a local company using a traditional method of brewing. Their product line is meant to be savoured – it is not something you might binge on at the pub on a Saturday night. Mead is also a great spirit for a summery cocktail.
Kate says both chefs and bartenders have championed their product line in creative and thoughtful ways.
Kinsale Mead Co's Hazy Summer Mead makes a great cocktail, which appeals to many younger drinkers.
“We’ve experienced some amazing food pairings from Irish chefs, which is always so great to see,” Kate says. “Our Atlantic Dry Mead is often paired with things like fish in a fennel and mead sauce, and we’ve seen it used to poach plums with cardamom and with blue cheese.”
This summer, Kinsale Mead Co. are promoting their Hazy Summer Mead which pairs well with barbecued foods or salads with zingy raspberry vinaigrettes.
“The Hazy Summer Mead offers strawberries and raspberries on the nose,” Kate says. “Then flavours of blackberries, blackcurrant and cherries come through, followed by blueberries on the finish. You also get a bit more of the honey, because this is a younger mead compared to our others [matured for approximately six months].”
Of the 10 meads currently available for online purchase, Kinsale Mead Co. offer three year-round products – their Atlantic Dry Mead, Hazy Summer Mead and Wild Red Mead – which can be found in SuperValu off-licences, The Celtic Whiskey Shop and O’Brien’s Wines, among other stockists.
Kate and Denis currently have five full-time employees and other part-time employees. They offer tours and tastings in their meadery, which has apparently become quite the local attraction.
“We’re the number one thing to do in Kinsale when it’s raining,” Kate says with a laugh.
See kinnegarbrewing.ie and kinsalemeadco.ie
Read more
A new flavour of farming with Two Green Shoots
Taste Tradition: from shelf to stove - recipes with a history
SHARING OPTIONS