First look: Inside BrewDog's first Irish bar on Dublin’s south docks

The Scottish independent brewing company will tomorrow open a massive bar on Dublin’s south docks, following a €1.6m investment.

It is the latest British chain pub operator to hit these shores, since JD Wetherspoon opened its first here in July 2014.

Located at the Capital Dock Building, BrewDog is hoping to attract patrons from the growing young tech workforce that populates the docklands area, along with beer lovers.

Retail director James Brown told Independent.ie they had been searching four years for the right premises here.

“We’ve looked at a number of properties and a number of potential partnerships in Dublin over the four years, many visits.

“We are big fans of the city, we’ve always known that we want to open here.

“Ireland is a challenging place to enter from a licensing perspective and maybe a year and a half ago we found this property, it’s a stunning building.”

It is the brewery’s 100th pub worldwide and the fourth of its large-scale ‘outpost’ locations, with the three others based in London, Seoul and Manchester.

It means the location will brew its own beer, separate from BrewDogs factories, with a capacity of five hectolitres.

Local brewers will be welcome to come and use the facilities.

“We’ll have a full-time brewer on site, we’ve hired someone local,” said Mr Brown.

“Their job will be not just be to brew beer but to engage with the local community but also reach out to other local brewers, who’ve maybe just started home-brewing or are already selling in the supermarkets. As long as they’re an independent craft brewer we’d love for them to come down and make beer."

Among the attractions it will use to tempt punters to the new pub are an Olympic-sized shuffleboards, an outside terrace and heated roof garden along with Berlin style street photo-booths.

There will be two bars, with 30 taps on each.

BrewDog started life as an independent brewer, founded by Scottish duo James Watt, and Martin Dickie.

In 2017, private equity house TSG Consumer Partners, based in San Francisco purchased 22pc of the company, with a £213m (€251m) cash injection boosting the value of the then 10-year-old company to £1bn (€1.2bn).

But Mr Brown said the company maintains its independent brewer credentials, with both founders still involved and a crowd-funding model utilising ‘equity punks’ - fans of the beer who are also investors.

There are 120,000 of them, including 1,500 in Ireland, with each investing an average of £450 (€531) .

“We see ourselves as independent, we believe in independence,” he said.

James Watt said the decision to open a larger ‘outpost’ premises was a case of “good things coming to those who wait”.

“Dublin is one of Europe’s most historic brewing cities so we can’t wait to arrive there and begin some brewing of our own.

“As well as our own craft beer and those we love from across Ireland, we are going to cook up a series of exclusive beers to bolster one of the most exciting craft beer scenes in Europe.

“So although Dublin has been on our list of cities for years, we are finally ticking it off in the biggest way possible,” he said.