2025 - What a Year! – Bullhouse Brew Co

2025 – What a Year!

It’s been a huge year for us at Bullhouse, and we’re really excited for what 2026 will bring as we hit our 10th anniversary! It’s mad to think it’s nearly been a decade already - things have really been gathering momentum recently.

Award Wins

We started the year on a high on the back of being awarded the Best Drinks Producer in the UK by the BBC in December 2024 and kept that energy throughout 2025.

UK Brewery Business of the Year: Picked up in March 2025 at the Society of Independent Brewers and Associates (SIBA) Business Awards, arguably the biggest award in the UK beer industry.
Best Independent Beer Bar in the UK: Awarded to Bullhouse East for the second time in three years (2023 & 2025) at the SIBA Business Awards.
Commercial Achievement Award: Awarded at the SIBA Business Awards
Hospitality Champion UK 2025: Awarded by the Living Wage Foundation for our advocacy in Northern Ireland.

To be awarded the biggest prize in the UK brewing industry was a huge surprise. For a little bootstrapped brewery from Northern Ireland to be competing against - and winning against - much better-resourced breweries is a huge achievement for our whole team and a testament to the huge amount of work that goes into the brewery. When I first visited BeerX way back in 2018 I was blown away by the sheer size and scale of the event and to come away this year with three award wins including the biggest award in the industry was a hugely proud moment.

Production Numbers

Production-wise, 2025 was another year of growth. We produced 2,938HL across 41 different beers for the year, up 16.5% on the year.

To put that in perspective:

That's 1,417 pints per day for every day of 2025.
It's 4.5 times the amount of beer we produced in the whole of 2021.
Rolling Papers, Suds, and Road Trippin’ continue to make up over 50% of our total production.

While GB remains our biggest market through our amazing wholesale partners at Cave Direct, we’ve also made inroads into the NI market with more taps popping up. We secured listings in Sainsburys (NI) and Asda (UK wide), which is a massive testament to our team’s efforts in dialing in quality control over the last number of years and I can confidently say we're producing world class beer right here in Belfast.

Over 65% of our production is kegged, the guys filled over 6500 kegs this year, each weighing 42kg. We invested in a keg lifting machine which arrived at the start of December to make life a wee bit easier!

We collaborated with 11 different breweries this year as well as a host of other businesses:

Industry Insights and Licensing

While we're eternally optimistic, the industry remains in a tough spot. Independent beer production was up 10% year on year in 2024, but it's pretty obvious that the high street and pubs are struggling.

High streets are taxed disproportionately highly compared to online retailers, and the gap is actually widening after the last budget despite the current Labour government's manifesto pledge to close the gap. I was proud to put my name to

National Insurance increases were well documented and our own Employers NI bill across the brewery and Bullhouse East rose by more than £35,000 in 2025 compared to 2024.

Northern Ireland is losing pubs at a faster rate than anywhere else in the UK and under the Surrender Principle, once these pubs are gone there's no way to bring them back.

Northern Ireland’s licensing system has remained largely unchanged since 1902. Despite recent hopes for a radical overhaul, the industry continues to face significant political and bureaucratic hurdles.

The push for reform gained momentum with a Licensing Amendment in 2021, but faced substantial resistance:

The Communities Minister at the time, Sinn Féin’s Deirdre Hargey, refused to meet with local producers.
Sinn Féin was the only party to vote against an independent review of the licensing system proposed by the SDLP's Matthew O'Toole and Alliance Party's Kellie Armstrong.
An amendment for a 7-day Local Producers’ License was rejected however a compromise was eventually reached, facilitated by Paula Bradley (DUP), who Chaired the Communities Committee, allowing local producers to operate for only 104 days per year.

Following the successful Amendment for an independent review into the Licensing system to take place, the peer-reviewed independent review, costing nearly £500,000, was published in February 2025 and concluded that the current system is damaging to the economy and public health.

However, the current Communities Minister, Gordon Lyons (DUP), recently moved against these findings:

After a statutory six-month window to respond to the review, the Minister delayed his statement from August until November.
He rejected the independent review’s recommendations, citing a private report submitted by Hospitality Ulster.
The Minister claimed the peer reviewed independent research was 'not costed,' yet the Department had accepted the report satisfied their requirements, including an economic analysis of any impact changes may have.
The Department are now refusing (under the Freedom of Information Act) to release the private report submitted by Hospitality Ulster which the Minister is now basing NI's licensing system on.

Despite voting against the independent review in 2021, Sinn Féin now claim the Minister 'missed an opportunity' by not implementing its findings.

I think this pretty much sums up the cross-party dysfunctionality of the Executive and their inability to make difficult decisions.

Reasons for Optimism

Taproom's like Beer Hut's in Kilkeel, Lacada's in Portrush and Whitewater's just outside Castlewellan have thrived despite the limitations of the current Local Producers' License. The Local Producers' License is up for review early in 2026 and we will be making the case that the world hasn't caved in and the restrictions should be lifted to allow taprooms to open more regularly and that they should be treated in the same manner as hotel licenses.

Other reason's to be optimistic include:

Public interest in licensing reform is at an all-time high, previous reviews in 1996 and 2007 failed as there was no one seriously making the case for reform.
Organisations like SIBA, CAMRA, and Free the Night are actively lobbying for change from the perspective of producers, consumers and the wider cultural sector.
We fought to ensure Northern Ireland was included in a UK-wide Access to Market review and presented to the Department for Business and Trade, this review is due for publication in the coming months.
The Producers' License is up for review in the coming months.
There are other avenues to continue the campaign against the Minister's decision to retain the surrender principle.

We're fighting to ensure local producers are treated fairly, restrictive trading hours are removed, and taprooms are permitted to sell a wider range of products.

Community and Looking Forward

Over the course of the year we donated over £5000 to our Charity Partner, Larder East, through our monthly charity pub quiz and Bullapalooza.

We continued our sponsorship of Ards and Donaghadee Cricket Club, began sponsoring North Down Cricket Club and sponsored Glentoran vs Portadown.

Bullapalooza will be making a return to its OG scaled back street party in 2026 from June 19th-21st.

We'll be hosting a 10 year anniversary beer festival at CS Lewis Square as part of Eastside Arts Festival (July 31st - August 1st).

New Production Facility

2026 will see our production move to a brand new 11,000sqft site.

When we moved to our current 6,000sqft site back in 2021 I thought it was way too big and we'd never fill it, but if you see it today it's fairly hectic and we've reached max capacity and need to make the move.

It’s long been our ambition to have an on-site taproom and have the ability to host brewery tours and 2026 on our 10 year anniversary is when it’s going to happen.

We’re building a brand new, bespoke steam-fired brewhouse which will be a work of art and allow us to reach new levels of quality, flavour and consistency. We'll also be investing heavily in our QC with an automated CIP system and expanding our cellar capacity initially to 6000HL with capacity to hit 12,000HL at the new site in the longer term.

We’re keeping the juicy details under wraps for now, but will be documenting the whole journey from site selection through equipment design and procurement through to fitout over the next few months.

Thank You

Thank you to every customer, big or small, for making 2025 such an unforgettable year for Bullhouse.

For everyone who turned out for Bullapalooza despite the torrential downpour - thank you!

Thank you to our amazing team as we continue to try our very best to make positive changes in the industry, advocating for independent producers and trying to make Northern Ireland a better place to work and live. Big shoutout to Emma for leading our brand refresh and all the best with the big move down under!

Cheers to 2026!

Willy Mayne

Bullhouse MD

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