Whitewater Brewery

Bernard and Kerry Sloan started Whitewater on the family farm near Kilkeel in 1996, Bernard — a chemical engineer by training — building the original five-barrel plant himself. It became one of Northern Ireland's longest-established independent breweries and moved in 2017 to a larger site at Lakeside Brae, Castlewellan, in the foothills of the Mournes, where it now runs a Tap House alongside the brewing hall. The beer is still made by the Sloan family on their own ground. For a brewery that has grown well beyond five barrels, it has held on to what started it: two people, a farm, and a plant built to their own design.