John Lancaster from Craanford, Co Wexford, is the winner of the Guinness Perpetual Cup for malting barley excellence for 2023.

Lancaster, who farms with son John and in close co-operation with his brothers Jimmy and Pat and nephew Frank, took the coveted prize for a sample of Planet barley.

The Lancasters supply Ballycarney Grain, which was in its first year of supplying Boortmalt in its own right.

Expansion

At the awards, Boortmalt chief operations officer Peter Nallen announced plans for a substantial expansion of the Athy maltings.

“This represents a doubling of the capacity of the site if you look back to 2010 [when Boortmalt purchased Greencore grain]," said Nallen.

He explained that the expansion is intrinsically linked to Diago’s planned new €200m beer brewery in Newbridge.

“We have been around for nearly 180 years, and for most of those years we have been happily supplying Diageo, and we’d like that to continue,” Nallen said.

Supply chain strength

Nallen added that despite the difficult growing year in 2023, "the strength and robustness of the local malting barley supply chain ensured we were still able to source 100% of our malting barley requirements from locally grown Irish malting barley".

Operations director of beer for Diageo Ireland Aidan Crowe highlighted their satisfaction with the quality of the 2023 malt for brewing, after what was a most difficult of harvests.

“As we go through the brewing process, we are pleasantly surprised that, so far, the quality of the materials we’re using is holding up really well,” he said.

With Guinness brewing 1.3 billion pints a year in its St James Gate premises and expansion due to commence construction imminently, that vote of confidence in Irish barley and malt following a nightmare year for most growers can only be good news.

Minister of State Martin Heydon expressed his delight at the commitment of both Diageo and Boortmalt to expanding their footprint in Ireland and their use of Irish grain “particularly as both developments will be in my own south Kildare”, he said.

Irish Farmers' Association deputy president Alice Doyle spoke of the interdependent triangle of grower, maltster and brewer, and expressed the hope that the FOB Creil pricing mechanism, which has delivered significant premiums over feed barley price for growers in recent years, continues to operate.