The secret to prize-winning brown bread? Guinness with honey and treacle, according to Olivia Nash, the newly crowned winner of the National Brown Bread Baking Competition for 2026.
“It’s quite sweet and it’s quite dense but I think that could be it,” says Nash, from Tallaght in Dublin. “I use honey and treacle because my husband hates dry bread. He constantly gives out about it so mine is really really moist.”
Nash’s loaf beat off competition from more than 400 other bakers to reach the final stage of the contest at the National Ploughing Championships in Screggan, Co Offaly on Thursday. She faced three other competitors at the final event, cheered on by her seven-month-old daughter Mabel, otherwise known as her “lucky charm”.
Nash says she created and tweaked her bread recipe over the years, developing it to suit her husband Colin Hassett’s tastes. She posts her bread-making efforts on her popular @beingolivianash Instagram account, where she describes herself as a “proud sourdough starter mom”.
“I use Guinness in my brown bread, I always have and I probably always will. My husband loves the end of a can of Guinness so it’s a big favourite on a Sunday afternoon in our house. He actually encouraged me to enter it, so I am glad that he did,” she says.
Nash also credits Mabel, who woke her up at 4am on the day of the first round of brown bread entries.
Olivia Nash from Dublin with her daughter Mabel after winning the final of the Brown Bread Baking Competition on the third day of the National Ploughing Championships in Tullamore, Co Offaly. Photograph: Alan Betson / The Irish Times
As winner, Nash will receive a €5,000 cash prize and a Neff “slide and hide” oven, the model which is used by contestants in The Great British Bake Off.
The junior brown bread winner on Thursday was fellow Dubliner Cara Wall who used her grandmother’s recipe and bagged a €1,500 Euronics voucher for herself and a further €1,500 voucher for her school.
Olivia Nash and Cara Wall from Dublin, winners of the Senior and Junior finals of the Brown Bread Baking Competition on the third day of the National Ploughing Championships in Tullamore, Co Offaly. Photograph: Alan Betson / The Irish Times
Judging the finals of the Brown Bread baking competition on the 3rd day of the National Ploughing Championships at Tullamore, Co Offaly. Photograph: Alan Betson / The Irish Times
The National Brown Bread Baking Competition began in 1954, while the junior component launched in 2025.
When the Ploughing Championships kicked off on Tuesday, there were 16 finalists; eight junior and eight senior. This group was then whittled down to Thursday’s final four after Tuesday and Wednesday’s semi-finals.
Chef Eleanor Martin, Thelma Burke from the Irish Countrywomen’s Association and 1973 brown bread champion Eileen Brennan comprised the judging panel for this year’s competition and sampled some 450 loaves of brown bread.
The Brown Bread Baking Competition on the third day of the National Ploughing Championships in Tullamore, Co Offaly. Photograph: Alan Betson / The Irish Times 
Brown bread in the oven during the finals of the Brown Bread Making Competition on the third day of the National Ploughing Championships. Photograph: Alan Betson / The Irish Times
Martin said that while she does not tire of brown bread, on qualification day where judges select the finalists, tasters can risk palate fatigue.
“You only taste a tiny amount and you don’t have any dinner then that night,” she says, before adding that to avoid a tired palate, judges “have water all the way through”.
Not every loaf has to be eaten according to Martin: “It is very clear straight away if there’s something really good”.
“You cut them and you know you are not going to taste that because it is not cooked.”
The qualification process is only for five of the eight brown bread finalists, as three places are allocated to the Irish Countrywomen’s Association which is made up of 440 guilds.
Martin says that, while judging, it’s important to honour “the tradition of a good brown bread, but also texture and flavour”.
“Can we cut it? It must look good as well. Sometimes you cut it and it just falls to pieces and that is impractical. It is a bread and it needs to hold together.”