You can order up a "Hooker" at any pub in Ireland

“ A Galway Hooker please. Two Hookers and a Guinness. A Heineken and a Hooker.” You hear it over and over when you are out in the pubs. The Galway Hooker is an iconic boat….and it’s become an iconic beer here too.

Galway Hookers

Aiden Murphy had kicked around the idea for years. And in the 1990’s he took the leap.

“Everyone we told we were starting up a craft brewery asked us, what will you call it? They didn’t ask where it would be or anything else. Just what will you call it. And no matter what we said, they had a better idea. So we set up a website and let people vote. It all distilled down to Galway Hooker,” he says.

Kegs waiting for delivery from the warehouse in Oranmore.

They kind of had that name in mind to start with, but once they saw the support for it, they ran with it. Or rather…brewed with it? Now it’s a very popular oder in every pub around Ireland. And it more or less gave birth to the craft beer industry in Ireland.