Here at Rye River Brewing Co., it all starts ‘Straight From the Source’… Naturally.
Watch to see what’s behind our multi-award-winning beers.
#StraightFromTheSource #irishcraftbeer #Beer #craftbeer #Celbridge #kildare
Here at Rye River Brewing Co., it all starts ‘Straight From the Source’… Naturally.
Watch to see what’s behind our multi-award-winning beers.
#StraightFromTheSource #irishcraftbeer #Beer #craftbeer #Celbridge #kildare
The 2021 awards season has truly been an excellent one for us here at Rye River Brewing Co.! Following our outstanding results at the World Beer Awards, our beers were once again put to the (taste) test at the Great Taste Awards in London and the Blas na hÉireann awards in Dingle, Co. Kerry. Curious about the results? Keep reading!
The Great Taste Awards is the world’s largest and most trusted food and drink awards. Organised by the Guild of Fine Foods, the Great Taste Awards supports both large and small food and drink producers across the globe. Great Taste judges look for a variety of qualities when blind-tasting products, including aroma, appearance, texture, and overall quality. Ultimately, awards are based on how great the product tastes and provide consumers a stamp of excellence on products. Learn more about the Great Taste right here.
We’re blown away by our results! This has been our best performance yet at the Great Taste awards and we’re immensely proud of our Rye River team for their continuous hard work and dedication to bringing you the best Rye River beers possible.
The Irish Food Awards, also known as Blas an hÉireann, celebrate the very best tasting Irish food and drink products from passionate and dedicated producers from all over the country. Products from every county in Ireland are entered with judges blind tasting products from a wide array of food and drink categories.
The Blas na hÉireann awards have the highest recognition amongst Irish consumers for quality Irish products. Curious to learn more? You can visit the Irish Food Awards website for more details!
Now it’s your turn! Curious where to find our beers? You’re in the right place!
Our Solas range is exclusively brewed for Tesco which you will be able to find in-store and online.
Grafters is exclusively brewed for Dunnes Stores.
And Lidl carries our full range of The Crafty Brewing Co. in stores all across Ireland!
Let us know what you think! Tag us in your photos on social media too if you’re in the sharing mood. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook for some great brewery content!
We are ecstatic to announce that we are the world’s most decorated brewery for the second year running! This is a historic achievement for an independent Irish craft brewery and puts us distinctly on the world stage of craft beer.
This year has been another phenomenal year for us here at Rye River Brewing Company, culminating in a total of 31 awards across both beer style and design at the 2021 World Beer Awards. Our range of beers received an incredible 22 awards for taste and 9 for design across our 6 brands. The World Beer Awards are the global awards selecting the very best in all the internationally recognised styles.
A very special thank you to everyone on the Rye River team for all of their incredible hard work, dedication, and commitment to making 2021 another memorable year for us all.
This year our Crafty Brewing Co. American Style Brown Ale won the World’s Best Dark American Style Brown Ale award which is a fantastic accomplishment. We also have a total of 6 country winners (including the Crafty Brewing Co. American Style Brown Ale). This includes our Rye River Brewing Co. Big Bangin’ IPA, 3 of our Rye River Seasonals – Brunch, Belgian Imperial Stout, and Garnet – and finally Dan’s Double IPA from our McGargles range. And finally, we received a total of 8 silver and bronze medals each across our range of beers.
Curious to see the full list of winners? Keep reading!
In what has been a strange and challenging year we are making sure to celebrate the wins when they come! As awards season 2020 comes to a close, we are humbled to have won 36 accolades this year!
Thirty of our awards were at the World Beer Awards, twenty-six of which were in the fiercely contested Taste category. Our beers were judged alongside over 2,200 beers from more than 50 countries worldwide. The remaining accolades were in the Design category, collaborating with Greenhouse to create eye-catching, and now award-winning, packaging for our exciting range of beers.
Our biggest awards were for:
Ireland’s Best Lager Helles/Münchner is another accolade we received for our Rye River label Helles Lager.

To top it off, we won 2 Gold Medals, 11 Silver Medals and 7 Bronze Medals. This is our best performance (so far!) at the World Beer Awards and for the second consecutive year we are The Most Decorated Independent Craft Brewery in the World.
Founder and Managing Director Tom Cronin had this to say: “We are elated with our success at the 2020 World Beer Awards, in particular, our 4 Best in Style awards, including Best American Style IPA for the second consecutive year. I believe our success is driven by our dedicated team of brewers and the wider production team, our persistent pursuit of perfection in process and our uncompromising focus on quality, all of which culminate to deliver consistently exceptional beers. Our accomplishments at the 2020 WBAs have acted as a significant endorsement for our beers on the international craft beer stage.”
Shortly after the World Beer Awards, our winning streak continued at Blas na hEireann. We were awarded 5 further accolades for our retail exclusive brands;
Just recently we were awarded 1 Star at the Great Taste Awards for Solas Belgian White, exclusively brewed for Tesco Ireland.
2020 has been our most successful to date and it highlights the skill and dedication of our wonderful team. Never complacent though, we’ve already got our eyes on the prizes for next year!
We are proud to announce that seven of our beers have reached the finals of Blas na hEireann, The Irish Food Awards 2020.
Blas na hEireann is the biggest competition for quality Irish produce on the island of Ireland, celebrating and rewarding the very best tasting Irish food and drink products, and the passionate, driven producers who make them.
The overall winners will be announced in October but in the meantime, make sure you check out the Rye River brewed beers that are in the running for these illustrious awards!

Big, bold and tasty, this American style IPA is full-on flavour, delivering a massive hit of juicy, citrus fruits.
A crisp rounded body that delivers a light malt sweetness and finishes with orange zest bitterness.
The Grafters range is available exclusively in Dunnes Stores, Nationwide
A timeless Red Ale, complex and malty. Flavours to savour of toffee, dark fruit and fresh roast, all livened by a single hop aroma.
A modern take on a traditional beer. This Irish Stout brings forward notes of dark chocolate with hints of coffee and dark fruit. Take a journey into the dark side of malt.
The Solas range is available exclusively in Tesco, Nationwide
This Irish Craft Lager is clean and crisp with a prominent hop character that comes from the Tradition and Hersbrucker hop varieties. Its jewel toned colour is indicative of a rich and deep flavour. A true joy to taste.
This Irish Craft Stout is full bodied with coffee and chocolate aromas. The depth of flavour is attributed to speciality roast malts balanced by the right bittering hop. An assured favourite for any stout fan.
This American style brown ale is medium bodied with notes of dark fruits and coffee mixed with floral and spiced hops. Tastes of chocolate and medium roast coffee lead to a light toffee, low bitterness and malty finish.
The Crafty Brewing Company range is available exclusively in Lidl, Nationwide
Update: an earlier version of this blog stated that we had 6 beers in the finals. It has been updated to reflect that Grafters Clocking Off Kolsch also made the final round.
The World Beer Awards are the global awards selecting the very best internationally recognised beer styles. For the second year running, Rye River Brewing Co. is the most successful European brewery at this year’s competition! This is an outstanding achievement and perhaps our proudest to date considering the worldwide competition that we faced. Over 2000 beers from 30 countries around the globe were entered into this year’s competition to be judged by the panel of experts.

This year our McGargles Francis’ Big Bangin’ IPA was awarded World’s Best IPA American Style – being the highlight of the awards for us.
We have also been awarded with 12 Country Style Winners. This includes 6 of our McGargles beers (Dan’s Double IPA, Daragh’s Session IPA & Francis’ Big Bangin’ IPA, Ned’s Retro IPA, Bill’s Wheat IPA & Granny’s Red Ale), 2 for Crafty Brewing Company beers (American Style Brown Ale & American Style Pale Wheat Ale), 1 for Solas Hops & Grains beers (Brown Porter), 1 for Grafters (Kölsch Style) and 2 for our Rye River Seasonal range (Mother Pucker Blackberry Sour & Belgian Imperial Stout). Finally, we received, 1 Bronze Medal, 3 Silver Medals and 4 Gold Medals. You can check out our full list of winners and their categories below!
This has been our most successful year to date and it once again highlights the skill and dedication of our wonderful Brew Team & everyone else that is involved at Rye River Brewing Company.
The prestigious Great Taste Awards have been described as the ‘Oscars of the food world’! They are organised by the Guild of Fine Food and they shine a light on the very best quality food and drinks. The focus is very much on the taste of the products rather than any fancy packaging or clever marketing.
We are delighted to announce that we were awarded stars for seven of the beers we brew here at Rye River Brewing. As this once again highlights our dedication to brewing world class beers!

The Grafters Working Day IPA and Clocking Off Kolsch both were deemed worthy of Two Stars in this year’s Great Taste Awards. Grafters Working Day IPA makes a perfect finish to any day with it’s delicious hoppy bite. Grafters Clocking Off Kolsch is true to style and is very easy to drink with some barbeque. You can find these beers in Dunnes Stores nationwide.

The Solas Brown Porter, Session IPA and Belgian Wit were all awarded One Star each. The judges had this to say about the beers: Solas Brown Porter is ‘A deep caramel coloured beer, this delivers vivid coffee notes on the nose that follow through well onto the palate with a richness that lingers brilliantly on the palate.’ Solas Session IPA has ‘..quite a juicy fruit flavour, with some well-balanced bitterness from the hops and an almost chewy mouthfeel.’Solas Belgian Wit has ‘All the elements of a Belgian wheat beer but with a light hand – more delicate than some of the spicier and heavier Belgian wheat beers, which can be cloying.’ These beers are sold in Tesco stores across Ireland.

The Crafty Brewing Company Irish Lager and Irish Pale Ale were both awarded One Star. The Crafty Brewing Irish Lager is brewed in the traditional European Pilsner style and noble hops give it a refreshing lightly bitter taste. It is also lagered for a minimum of 35 days. Ella is used in The Crafty Brewing Company Irish Pale Ale to give it a distinctive hop aroma. These beers are available exclusively in Lidl stores.
This Great Taste Award winning line up is a credit to our brewing team. They are rightly very proud of these beers! Why not pick up some to try over the weekend? You can celebrate this success with us!