We’ll be selling warm beer in the dark this winter, Irish publican warns

The good news just keeps on rolling in.

With all the discussion of blackouts hitting the country over the last few months, Irish publicans are naturally worried about the impact this could have on their businesses.

One such proprietor is TJ McInerney, who fears pubs could be forced to sell warm bottled beer by candlelight if blackouts come to fruition.

In a statement shared by the Irish Mirror TJ, whose award-winning TJ Mac’s bar in Mullinahone was recently named Best Local Pub in the South-West Region said the Government don’t realise how “bleak” the situation could become for rural pubs:

I don’t have a generator and most pubs don’t. They’re too dear at around €12,000 and they’re very complicated; it’s not like switching on the kettle.

They’re not the solution. The main thing in pubs with electricity loss is lights out, tills down, no card readers, and refrigeration loss, so no cold pints.

No draught beer, no ice, bottles would be out of a warm fridge.

We’ll be using school calculators in candlelight. You couldn’t even use your phone’s calculator because we’d need to conserve its battery power.

Do they realise how bleak it could be in small towns and villages all across Ireland? We don’t all live in Dublin.

Interior of TJ Mac’s Pub 

TJ added that whatever the circumstances, he’d find a way to serve his customers, saying “the pubs will be open because the show must go on. We’ll have the open fire lit, the chat will flow, and we’ll all be warm…. It’ll be candlelight, despite health and safety officials warning of the risk of potential accident compensation claims”.

Last month, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen last month discussed introducing a “mandatory target for reducing electricity use at peak hours” across the EU and will “work closely with member states” to tackle soaring costs.

TJ concluded: “We have endured so much. I see an angry Irish public mob on the streets…. We are asking the Government to give us a bit of Christmas cheer”.

Header image via Facebook/TJ Mac’s Bar 

READ NEXT: Jeremy Clarkson ordered to shut his restaurant and cafe Diddly Squat Farm