Bethany launches tasty novel ice cream influenced by Harland and Wolff

Ice cream maker Bethany Boyd has revived a small part of the history of Harland and Wolff shipyard and is launching it today under the shadows of the iconic cranes.

The 22-year old entrepreneur is unveiling a novel brown lemonade ice cream flavour at a special event at the Barge restaurant on the Lagan.

From Pomeroy in Co Tyrone, Bethany, who set up Betty’s Ice Cream last year, was searching for a new flavour for her developing portfolio of ice creams when she was urged to consider brown lemonade, once a popular soft drink in Belfast in the forties and fifties by an existing customer. This led Bethany to start researching the flavour, discovering that it became popular at the historic Harland and Wolff’s sprawling shipyards following a management ban on alcohol due to potential safety hazards.

“We’re always keen on hearing about flavour ideas from customers which is where brown lemonade came from. I’d never heard of brown lemonade before and decided to start researching it,” Bethany explains. “Brown lemonade was a big thing in industrial Belfast, especially within the shipyards because after alcohol was banned, brown lemonade was brought in for the workers as it looked like ale. It’s a unique flavour,” she adds.

Clear lemonade, she continues, was dyed with brown sugar or molasses from the Caribbean to make it look like ale. The lemonade was subsequently produced by C&C in Belfast and Maine in Ballymoney.

Bethany also sought guidance from experienced chef Brian Magill at the South Eastern Regional College in Bangor on the development of flavour profile for use in ice cream. A former head chef at the five-star Culloden Hotel, Brian has vast experience in new product development.

“My first thought was to buy a bottle of brown lemonade and pour it into a mixture but that just wasn’t going to work,” Bethany continues. Brian helped her to look into what went into the drink itself and see how it could work in ice cream.

While a student at CAFRE at Loughry, near Cookstown, studying food and drink, Bethany was able to draw guidance from experts there in making her ice cream at the family’s farm in Pomeroy.

The artisan ice cream enterprise is the realisation of Bethany’s dream to own her own small business and to develop further her links with the local farming community.

Bethany was helped, in particular, by CAFRE experts to develop the easy scoop feature and with market research into opportunities here for a new artisan ice cream.

The venture was also influenced by the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns.

“We saw the trend among shoppers especially for local food products,” she continues, “and it started the family thinking about products that we could create that would also provide some support for local dairy farmers,” she adds. “Everyone in the area was hugely supportive and keen to enjoy the ice cream that we subsequently produced. This enthusiasm, especially from my parents and wider family, helped enormously as I worked to create a really different ice cream,” she adds.