If you’ve stepped foot inside a good pub, you know it’s not always about how much the beer costs or how good it tastes that has you coming back.
It’s about how it makes you feel. Whether that’s catching up on the latest gossip, celebrating special events, or leaving the venue as best friends with someone you only met a few hours prior.
That’s the spirit at the heart of Heineken’s latest campaign – a documentary with a mission.
It comes after over 2100 pubs disappeared in Ireland between 2005 and 2025.
As a beer brewer, Heineken naturally wants to stop the closure of struggling pubs. Its latest platform, “For the Love of Pubs,” created by LePub Worldwide and Publicis Dublin, is devised to safeguard pub culture and social connection.
As part of its new “For the Love of Pubs” platform, Heineken has released a 10-minute documentary, The Pub That Refused To Die, telling the story of a small Irish village that refused to let its only pub disappear.
A village that refused to say goodbye
The film follows the residents of Kilteely, Ireland, after their only local pub went up for sale for €300,000 (AU$490,000).
Instead of watching their social hub disappear, 26 locals did something pretty extraordinary: they decided to buy it themselves.
With absolutely no hospitality experience, the group split the cost into €15,000 shares, rallied the community, renovated the venue, and reopened it under a new name – Street Bar.
Award-winning Irish filmmaker Gar O’Rouke captured the journey in the documentary, which blends grassroots determination with a fair bit of Irish charm.
Heineken eventually stepped in to help the project across the finish line, offering training, advice, and support to ensure the pub could reopen, and stay open.
A campaign that’s part story, part playbook
The documentary premiered at the 2026 Dublin International Film Festival on February 28, but Heineken’s ambitions for it go well beyond the festival circuit.
The brand plans to take the film on tour, hosting screenings for communities facing similar pub closures. Each event will wrap with a live Q&A featuring Street Bar shareholders and a local Heineken representative, turning the film into something more practical than a brand showcase.
It’s less “watch this story” and more “here’s how you could do it too.”
To support the effort, the “For the Love of Pubs” platform also includes an online resource hub packed with guidance, tools and inspiration for communities interested in saving their own local watering holes.
A long-standing love affair with pubs
Heineken’s latest effort fits neatly into a broader track record of backing the venues that sell its beer.
In 2024, the brewer helped transform historic Irish pubs into virtual “Pub Museums,” allowing them to apply for government grants and tax exemptions usually reserved for cultural landmarks.
It has also experimented with creative solutions to pub succession. Last year, the brand launched a global recruitment campaign to find a new owner for McLoughlin’s Bar on Achill Island after fourth-generation publican Joseph “Josie” McLoughlin stepped down after 43 years with no family successor.
The unusual requirement? Applicants had to be named McLoughlin.
More than 2,000 people applied, and two McLoughlin descendants were eventually flown to Ireland to reconnect with their roots.
Following its premiere at the Dublin International Film Festival, Heineken and the new pub owners are taking the documentary to rural communities in Ireland to share the story and encourage others to follow in Kilteely’s footsteps.
Each screening will end with a live Q&A, offering audiences the chance to hear directly from the Kilteely shareholders.
