The road into the small town of Baile Bhuirne in Co Cork brings you right past Coláiste Ghobnatan, where I spent three blissful weeks in the 1990s studying the Modh Coinníolach, among other things.

This is Gaeltacht territory, in southwest Co Cork, and home to the 9 White Deer brewing company.

"Bread and butter beers" is how co-founder Gordon Lucey (pictured) puts it. "We're very local focused," he says, "when we started out we didn't want to make something thinking no one around here will touch that".

Microbreweries these days often opt for the hoppy IPA as their first beer, instead 9 White Deer tapped into local tastes and used it as a guide. Stag Bán, for example, is a crisp, light and satisfyingly straight-up 4.5 per cent pale ale.

In many ways, 9 White Deer encapsulates the very concept of a local brewery: their focus is regional, supplying to many pubs on this side of the country, and they use local grains, transport and cardboard boxes. “Everything you do locally, it all comes back,” says Lucey.

Formerly a marine engineer, Lucey travelled the world on tanker ships before becoming a brewer.

“Everywhere I went there was always such a selection of local beers on offer – but when I came home I realised it was all just the same five or so taps in every pub.” He started homebrewing, then decided to set up with miller Don O’Leary and in 2014 they released their first beer.

He hands me a pint of their silky-smooth stout which is made with oatmeal from Macroom, and shows me around the brewery where he built all of the tanks and fermenters himself. Their new beer, an American IPA called 5 Stags, will be launched later this month.

Most of their trade is in draught beer. “In rural pubs,” he says, “bottles are low sellers”.

@ITbeerista beersita@irishtimes.com