IT'S only half«MDBO» «MDNM»smoked, but Mr Gerry van Soest has to stub out his fat cigar; that way both hands are free to gesticulate. His eyes gleam with zeal. This is a man with a mission, an executive in love with his product.
"It's true. I adore beer. I've loved working in it. It's extraordinary how it grabs you," the former head of Heineken's Murphy's Brewery says.
He arrived from the Netherlands in 1983 at the virtually defunct Cork plant. He had plan and a blank cheque to implement it. By 1988, when he was recalled, he had made Heineken Ireland's market leader.
He became chief executive of Heineken in the Netherlands, and parted, amicably, with the company in 1990.
But he could not stay away from Ireland, or from beer. His latest project will see him back in his old business.
"It's a `back to the future' thing," he says. "In the past, before the concentration of breweries, local breweries served local areas. There were hundreds of them across Europe. We're going to build a regional brewery."
His will be 50 miles from Dublin, in Kilbeggan, Co Westmeath. It will have two products, a red beer and a stout, and at most 20 employees. He says the startup costs will exceed £3 million, but not by much.
The plant is being designed and constructed at the moment by Leushuis in the Netherlands. When it is ready, it will be shipped to Ireland and built into an old stone edifice in Kilbeggan.
The first pint should be ready by next year, "when the weather starts getting better", and it comes only from a barrel «MDBO»-«MDNM» no bottles.
But it will not be stocked in every bar. The brewery will target around 90 pubs in Dublin, and a few around Kilbeggan.
He has two nightmare scenarios; that the product bombs, like Guinness Light, or that it becomes a soaraway success: "That would be just as dangerous, because we couldn't cope with demand."
