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11 Oct 2025
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11 Oct 2025
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Pictured: David Walsh-Kimis of Ballykilcavan Farm and Brewery
A Laois business has launched an ingenious new marketing campaign to make light of their Electric Picnic 'snub'.
Ballykilcavan Farm and Brewery owner David Walsh-Kemis has called out Electric Picnic over their exclusion from this year's festival.
Mr Walsh-Kemis maintains that local breweries are not allowed to take part in the festival, due to Heineken's sponsorship.
The Stradbally based brewery is a family-run business which has been in operation since 2017. The farm has been in the owner's family for over 13 generations, and have publicly challenged their 'exclusion' over the past three years.
In a video recently posted online, Ballykilcavan launched their new limited edition IPA 'Gatecrasher' to coincide with Electric Picnic, which they say they 'do not want' people to smuggle into the festival.
The company say that they 'are not' providing prizes to people who take 'the best photo' with the IPA smuggled into the festival.
"Because Heineken are the main sponsors, they get complete exclusivity over beer sales," Mr Walsh-Kimis previously told the Leinster Express / Laois Live.
"When you’re in the festival, it looks like there are a lot of different brands there, but every single one of them is 100% owned by Heineken.
"No one else is allowed in, so we’re not allowed to enter a bar in there. We’re absolutely not trying to take over from Heineken, that would be ridiculous. The size of our brewery can’t even compare to theirs," he explained.
"Unfortunately, this seems to be the way the world works, that big brands are able to buy exclusivity and price out others. If we were the same size as Heineken, we could bid against them to buy the rights from them, but we’re obviously not.
"We’re so close to the festival, that we can literally hear the music from our farm and from the brewery. To me, it’s a shame that the world is set up in such a way that this is allowed to happen," the business owner said.
This is the third year that Mr Walsh-Kimis has been campaigning for the inclusion of local brands, and he doesn’t see this situation changing any time soon.
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