Westmeath brewery makes one-off beer to raise funds for Ukraine
An Athlone craft brewery recently made a one-off beer to show support and raise money for the people of Ukraine.
Sunflowers Fight Back was the name of the brew created by Dead Centre Brewing, and it generated €450 which was donated to the Irish Red Cross last week.
Dead Centre, which is in the process of expanding its range and capacity, brewed just one keg of the special beer at its Custume Pier brewery in the heart of Athlone.
Wheat is a major export from Ukraine, so the brewery developed a recipe for a German-style Weissbier which also incorporated toasted sunflower seeds. The sunflower is the national flower of Ukraine.
"We firmly believe that the people of the Ukraine deserve our full support," said Liam Tutty, the founder of Dead Centre Brewing.
"We had already become involved with a 'Brewers for Ukraine' project whereby we donated vouchers and gift packs to raffle off as a fundraiser, but we really felt there was more that we could do and our head brewer quickly came up with a truly unique recipe for a beer."
Roger Rotheroe, Dead Centre's head brewer, said he had been keen to show some form of solidarity with people affected by the crisis in Ukraine.
"It's been genuinely horrible to watch the war unfold since Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine, so I really wanted to do everything we could to help in the best way we know how – by brewing beer," he said.
"We are lucky enough to have small pilot kit in the brewery that comfortably makes a 50-litre keg.
"Thankfully, the beer was even better received than we had hoped and it lasted only a few days before the keg ran dry. I think that says a lot about not just the quality of the beer but also the giving nature of the customers we are lucky enough to have in Dead Centre.”
Another of the talented brewers at Dead Centre Brewing, Ruth Court, developed the artwork for the beer. The graphic showed a sunflower which was created using multiple instances of Dead Centre Brewing's 'pin-drop' style logo.