Gilchrist's is managed by our CEO Alan Gilchrist and Director Pat Gilchrist. Pat will be the contact manager for the event. After founding the company in 1982 they have

been involved in the event industry in the UK ever since and attending events like the Tall Ships Race throughout Europe since 1986. We held the rights to Cutty Sark Whisky Branded Products for ten years from Barry Bro's & Rudd who owned the brand and sponsored the race. 

Gilchrist's event bar history started with Pimm's branded promotions when the brand was owned by UDV. This took us onto events such as Sunday Times Food & Drink, The Royal Show, Ideal Home Show, Etc. This grew taking Pimm's branded bars to Germany for British themed events 

Currently Gilchrist's Specialises in supplying Event Bars, Confectionery and Catering Services to many high profile events throughout the UK and Europe. Trading as Merry Monk Taverns we provide many different types and style of bars. However we have become very skilled at providing themed bars. We are specialists at providing German/Continental bars with a strong working relationship with Paulaner Brewery in Munich and Fruli in Belgium. These working relationship has built up to Gilchrists holding distribution rights within Northern Ireland for these unique products. As well as Paulaner the continental bars bring in other international breweries such as Rekorderlig, Berliner and WEST. When a large Uk brewery sponsors an event we are very happy to work with them and have done in the past with companies such as Tenants, Heineken and Cameron's on events like the Royal Highland Show, Hartlepool Maritime, etc. 

Merry Monk Taverns is growing as a company and our current experience demonstrates that we can provide the highest quality standard of bar service as well as being fully adaptable to any event space and environment. 

Our company bases around a family run philosophy and our team is made up of a core of twenty regular staff with ten Scottish and English Personal Licence Holders. We also bring in many students; some for long periods and some just for one off events. However everyone who works enjoys themselves and most return year on year to be part of our team. As a team we work together and although it can be hard it is also enjoyable which then transmits into the happy smiley service the customer receives. We have been working within Northern Ireland since 1998 and have developed many support networks with regular staff and companies. This allows us to take on an event of any size. Oktoberfest Belfast shows our capability and competent professionalism. For this event our team grows to 5 managers, 35 serving staff, 18 Musicians, 20 Security, 5 Catering staff, 3 medical officers and 2 cellar staff. This then can handle comfortably a footfall of 2000 people a night and runs over weekends.