Team Hot Press are deeply saddened by the death over the weekend of Oliver Hughes, the former barrister who helped kickstart the Irish craft beer revolution with his co-founding during the late ‘80s of the Porterhouse.
The 55-year-old, who’s survived by his wife and two children, is understood to have suffered a heart attack on Saturday night.
Last year, Oliver joined Seamus O'Hara from the Carlow Brewing Company, Galway Hooker's Aidan Murphy, Dungarvan Brewing's Cormac O'Dwyer and our man Stuart Clark for a Hop Press panel discussion at the Irish Craft Beer Festival in the RDS. Although serious about his business, he was able to spin a wonderful yarn with the crowd in stitches as he recounted some of his wilder Porterhouse exploits.
From a single pub in Bray, Hughes and his business partner Liam La Hart grew the group to comprise of seven bars, five restaurants, Lillie’s Bordello, the Dingle Distillery and the familiar range of Porterhouse beers, which have gone from single cask to supermarket shelves.
As well as being a visionary, Oliver was great fun and full of enthusiasm for whatever his latest project happened to be. The beers that he’d regularly launch in the Temple Bar Porterhouse were always talked about with much love, and he harboured ambitions to break the States in a big way.
He was also a huge rock ‘n’ roll fan who brewed a special beer for Joe Elliott’s Mott The Hoople-loving side-project, Down ‘N’ Outz, and then launched the Louder range of beers with the Def Leppard frontman.
“In honour of Spinal Tap it goes all the way up to 11% proof,” said Joe a few years back of their flagship Louder Bangin’ Strong Ale. “It’s a take no prisoners American-style barley wine meant for sipping.
“It started, as so many brilliant ideas do, very late one night in Lillie’s Bordello,” Joe continued. “One of the hostesses there, Jean Crowley, had seen the cover for the first Down ‘N’ Outz album, which was a picture of the bar in Sheffield’s none-too-salubrious Rutland Hotel. We’d photo-shopped one of the taps to say ‘Down ‘N’ Outz Beer’ and Jean said, ‘You have to make it happen for real!’ She introduced me to Oliver who went, ‘Fuck, this is great!’ and dragged me off to their brewery.”
Dragged? We imagine Joe sprinted there quicker than Usain Bolt.
“Actually, now you come to mention it...” he laughed. “I said, ‘Look, it can’t be bland. I want it to have a kick, so that people go, ‘Holy shit!’ when they taste it.’ When I gave one to Rick (Savage) to take home, he emailed me three days later saying, ‘I’ve gotta tell ya, it’s the best beer I’ve ever fucking drunk in my life!’ How it worked was that Oliver gave me all these little tasters and I went, ‘Like that, don’t like that...’ until we arrived at something we both absolutely loved. We did a Christmas, Ireland-only limited-edition of 11,000 bottles, which just flew out.
“I’m a huge craft brew fan because, to me, it’s the beer equivalent of independent record labels,” he proffered. “’How do we get racking space in Tesco?’; ‘Do we go for a major distribution deal?’; ‘If we sell a million, will people think we’ve gone all safe and mainstream?’ It’s the same questions Geoff Travis at Rough Trade and the Stiff Records guys were asking themselves in the ‘70s. Inevitably you get some bandwagon-hopping with beers pretending to be indie when they’re actually owned by a major brand, but that’s all part of the game, the illusion. When you ring a 1-800-WANKMEOFF number, you kind of know she’s a big fat bastard but you can pretend she’s Pamela Anderson.”
Indeed, Oliver reminded us – in the best possible way – of people like the aforementioned Geoff Travis and Factory Records’ Tony Wilson who’d have mad, crazy ideas and actually make them happen. He will be sorely missed by all in the Irish brewing and entertainment worlds.